Tag Archives: reproductive justice

This Week In: Abortion

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“The Republican-led Arizona legislature has now taken measures to cut off Planned Parenthood’s access to taxpayer money funneled through the state for non-abortion services.” Use of taxpayer money for abortion was already illegal, but apparently that wasn’t good enough – now Planned Parenthood will receive no funding. It is unclear at this time exactly how this will affect its services, but it is certain that this inhibits its ability to provide health care services at a reasonable cost. For people – especially women – in Arizona without health insurance, this is a direct hit to their ability to receive lifesaving cancer screenings, STD prevention and treatment, and affordable birth control.

Utah now requires a 72 hour waiting period before an abortion. Previously, there was a 24-hour waiting period but, as of Tuesday, it has expanded to three full days. I’ll be honest: waiting period laws make me angrier than any other abortion law. There’s no pretense of protecting fetuses here; it’s all about “protecting” fragile women from their emotionally burdened lady brains. As if women need the government to remind them to think about their decision, to take it seriously! It’s insulting. The real kicker here is that there’s no loophole for non-viable fetuses, so women are forced to carry a pregnancy that could not and will not result in a live birth for three extra days which, frankly, is just plain cruel.

Wisconsin’s Planned Parenthood suspends non-surgical abortions. There is a new law in effect that “requires women visit a doctor at least three times before having a drug-induced abortion, forces physicians to determine whether a woman is being coerced into having an abortion, and prohibits women and doctors from using web cams during the procedure.” Three times? How unnecessary. In case you’re wondering about the web cam thing, they are referring to the possibility of a doctor counseling the woman about her medication via webcam – a good option when there is are a limited number of abortion providers in your state. Aside from the obvious problems here, like interfering with the relationship between the patient and her doctor and limiting a woman’s access to abortion, this poses an issue for women unique to this law – insisting that women have a surgical rather than a medical abortion. There are pros and cons to both methods (look for an upcoming post about abortion options!), but some women prefer the medical because it is more private and less physically invasive. Losing this option may make their abortion experience even more difficult for Wisconsin women.

If you live in Arizona, Utah or Wisconsin, consider contacting your representatives to let them know you’re unhappy with their shenanigans. If you want to do something about anti-choice activities in your area, contact your local representatives or sign up at Planned Parenthood Action Network to keep up to date. (Please note that our “action” site is provided by our C4, or political advocacy, arm.)

Plan B at the Pharmacy: Legality Doesn’t Equal Access

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Plan BSome years ago, way back before Plan B became available without a prescription, we called in a patient’s prescription to a pharmacy.  Because Plan B is something you must take within a fairly small time period for it to be effective, we liked to avoid making people come back in for an office visit.

So once they came in for their visit, we’d write the prescription for a full year – as in Plan B with multiple refills.  This way if a condom broke on you again weeks or months later, you could just go grab it with no fuss, no muss, and no waiting in a doctor’s office.

Shortly after leaving the Plan B prescription on the pharmacy’s machine, we got a phone call from an indignant pharmacist.  She couldn’t believe we’d wrote it with refills. “It’s supposed to be for an emergency only!” she said.  Our response: “It’s for more than one emergency.”  We refused to change the prescription.

Years later, some pharmacists are still trying to tamper with your access to emergency contraception. We’ve all seen the stories in the news about the so-called “conscience clauses,” laws giving pharmacists the rights to refuse to fill an Rx if it’s against their beliefs, but it appears that some pharmacists may have turned to outright lying.

MSNBC is reporting the results of a study showing that pharmacists give different answers about the availability of Plan B, depending on if they think they are talking to a doctor or a 17-year-old.  Researchers called pharmacies across five states, first identifying as a 17-year-old girl asking if they could buy Plan B, and then posing as a doctor who asked if their 17-year-old patient could buy it. They found that “[t]here was a huge disparity between the answers given to the teens and those offered to the physicians, with 19 percent of the 17-year-olds being told that they couldn’t get it under any circumstances, compared with only 3 percent of the physicians.”

I keep waiting for the days when people will finally get it:  Plan B is a perfectly safe and legal medication that prevents a pregnancy. Teen pregnancy is bad. Therefore, teens should have access to Plan B.  But in a sociopolitical climate where birth control for adult women is actually considered controversial, I think I’ll be waiting a long time.

I have a lot of respect for pharmacists; creating and maintaining what is essentially a medication encyclopedia inside your brain is not an easy task.  But letting your personal beliefs interfere with a woman (17 or not) getting her legal medication is clearly ridiculous.  What this study shows is that it’s not enough to fight legal battles; Plan B being legal won’t help prevent pregnancy if no one will sell it to you. Just like with abortion rights and birth control, we have to fight a battle for legality and then fight again for access.

But until society gets its act together and quits trying to interfere with your personal life, don’t take any crap: know the law, understand that Plan B is available without prescription to anyone 17 and over, and if your local pharmacist gives you any trouble, come see us.  We will help you.

Abortion: New Language for a New Generation

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My Body is Not YoursI was lucky enough to spend time a few weeks ago talking about the language we use as a society to describe abortion. (Not everyone’s chosen way to spend a Saturday, but you can see why I enjoy my work at Planned Parenthood now, right?)

Continuing legal access to abortion has been one of the most important – and bitterly divisive – fights of the last 39 years. And yet we’re still using the same language to talk about abortion as we were 39 years ago – choice, privacy, rights – as society has changed all around us.

It’s time for some new words.

Let me make this very clear: no one wants to make the decision to have an abortion. But that’s what we are entitled to do – make a decision, not a choice. It’s not a choice of breaking the law anymore or disappearing from your hometown in shame. It is a decision that you are legally allowed to make and no one, especially the government, should be able to take that away from you. Women are not like livestock, much to the bewilderment of a Georgia State Representative; we are empowered individuals who can decide what is best for us. No bureaucrat should be involved in important life decisions better left to a woman, her family, her doctor, and her faith.

If we have to ask permission to make a decision that we are legally entitled to make? If there are restrictions put in place to hinder us from making this decision, from 24-hour waiting periods to forced transvaginal ultrasounds to being forced to carry a stillborn fetus to term?

Then, in a very real sense, the power to make a decision on abortion has been taken away from us and we are seeking reproductive justice. It’s justice for being wronged, justice that we deserve, justice for all to make a decision on whether or not to have an abortion. It’s a difficult decision, but it’s ours to make.

I don’t know about you, but the words “choice,” “rights,” and particularly “privacy” don’t mean anything to me, a woman born post-Roe and who grew up in the Facebook era, where your life is very public. Whether or not to have an abortion is a decision that I have been able to make my entire life – and maybe you have, too.

So, what words do you think we should use when it comes to talking about abortion and reproductive health? What words resonate with you?

Pregnant by Choice

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Three years ago, I stood on the corner of a busy intersection, 7 months pregnant, proudly holding a sign that boasted, “Pregnant by Choice.” It was the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade and I wanted to remind people that choice means more than abortion. My mother’s pregnancy with me was unplanned, but not unwanted. It was 1979 and she had the choice to abort, but didn’t. Her boyfriend at the time wanted her to terminate the pregnancy, but she didn’t and left him instead. Take THAT for choice!

Two years ago, I stood on the same corner holding my 10-month-old in one arm and a sign in the other: “Pro-Privacy, Pro-Family, Pro-Choice.” Some young man walked past, pointed to my baby and said, “Wouldn’t she be dead?” He missed the point completely. Having a choice doesn’t mean having an abortion. Having a choice means that a woman has the right to decide what happens: parenting, adoption, abortion. Having a choice means that a woman has access to medical care, birth control, and community resources. It’s not a choice when a woman has to choose between paying for birth control and paying for her rent. Birth control should be free to all men and women who want to use it. Greater access to birth control, education, and medical care means fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer abortions – it’s pretty simple.

This year, I again stood on that corner, reproductive justice sign in one hand, 13-week-old fetus in my uterus. I was standing next to an older feminist who actually knew what it was like to live in a time when abortion wasn’t legal and we were commenting to one another how there were so many more honks of support than in years past. I believe that the attempts to outlaw abortion (personhood, TRAP laws, etc) are helping people form their opinions about abortion AND helping them find their voice to speak up in support of the Roe vs. Wade decision. Most Americans are in support of the Supreme Court decision; many of them are just too afraid to speak up.

Before I drove down to the corner to rally, I dropped off some HIV tests at the Health Center. It just happened to be the day many abortion patients were scheduled. As I stood there on the corner looking at the few thumbs down/negative comments coming from the cars, I couldn’t help but think that these people looked just like the ones sitting in the waiting room. I know plenty of people who have had abortions, real women with jobs, families, degrees, and not one of them carries shame around with them. And you know some too – you just might not know it. After all, 1 in 3 women will have an abortion by the time they reach 45.

Blogging for Choice: What Roe v. Wade Means to Me

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Today is the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark court case that made abortion legal in the United States. It’s a day to mark and celebrate our current reproductive freedom. It’s a day to think about the thousands upon thousands of women who died in back-alleys because they weren’t yet ready to have children. It’s a day to think about what Roe means to you.

Having been born more than a decade after Roe, it never meant much to me other than in the abstract – women in the United States, including me, could take control of their reproductive lives and I was happy for it. That’s how many women of my generation feel. But Roe suddenly took on much more meaning for me on an ordinary day at a nondescript Mexican restaurant when my mother told me she had gotten an abortion.

My white, middle-class, middle-of-the-road mother had an abortion? I was shocked. When she told me the details – that a few years after she and my father had their very-much-wanted children, she had accidentally gotten pregnant while on a prescription medication that caused harm to a fetus and the fetus wouldn’t have been able to live outside the womb – all of the sudden, keeping abortion legal became very personal and very real.

I wish more mothers would tell their daughters or their sisters or even the men in their lives about their experiences with abortion – it makes us, all of us, realize just how important legal abortion is. For me, in the short term, it’s made my mom and me closer; I know that if I was ever in a similar situation, she would be a source of support for me, important information for any daughter to know. In the long-term, it’s solidified my already strong support of Roe v. Wade and made me want to fight for and keep reproductive rights in this country so that women can make the choice that’s right for them.

In a world where more than half of abortions are unsafe and women are still dying every day in those back-alleys, give a little thought to what you can do to fight for Roe v. Wade. Sign up for Planned Parenthood’s action alerts; donate a few dollars to Planned Parenthood, NARAL, or Emily’s List; support a friend in her time of need.

Abortion is a safe, outpatient, and legal procedure in the United States – and it needs to stay that way.

(Today’s blog is a part of NARAL’s Blog for Choice Day. FYI: Tomorrow’s post will be talking about one of those women in one of those back-alleys around the world.)