reproductive choice

Even in the Quverfull Movement Women Are Intelligent, Committed, Competitive Human Beings

Posted by figleaf on Wed, 2010-05-26 17:01

I’ll just say that the women (and it’s almost exclusively women) who are making the arguments in the main post and in comments at Generation Cedar in favor of the proposition are not being illogical, irrational, or stupid for saying that a (not the only but a) reason women should try and stay pregnant is (I’m not making this up) to show the community that they and their partners have an active, non-dysfunctional sex life.

I happen to think the premises upon which they base their lines of reasoning are batshit insane with the result that their conclusions bring more harm than necessary on themselves and others. So I’m not saying I agree with them. Nor am I even saying “well, takes all kind to make the world” either. And in fact to the extent they argue or agitate that their choices should be imposed on all women (and by extension imposed on their partners and anyone else needed to take up the slack they drop by being perpetually pregnant) I’d oppose them… vigorously.

But there’s a tendency (around the world) to think people who do something you really, deeply, and based on evidence, believe is a mistake are deluded, enthralled, diminished, or coerced otherwise safe to dismiss as second-class or second-rate human beings. It’s pretty clear these are first-class and first-rate human beings who either have, or would have done well in college, grad school, or business.

They’re not stupid, or ignorant, they’re just really, really wrong.

They’re not even wrong about everything! They’re being a little (ok, a lot) dogmatic about the whole women should be fruitful and multiply thing, but no more dogmatic than other people can get about the overarching importance of women of not having any children at all.

And they’re certainly not wrong about the whole lower-case “it takes a village” importance of recognizing that community implies mutual responsibility and obligation as well as mutual support.

On the other hand I sure don’t see how even if they accept Paul’s (local, tactical) admonitions in his letters that wives should be to their husbands as their husbands are to God as some kind of claim that it’s a sin for women, or men, to decline sex when they don’t feel like it… or simply because their partner demands it.

And, whoo boy, I seriously don’t see where they get the idea that frequent and visible pregnancy, or not, is a more discreet way to signal ongoing sexual compatibility… or at least activity… to one’s community than, say, verbally checking in with friends, family, and confidants from time to time.

I mean, sure, if you add those last two bits as axioms for your value system then a lot of their conclusions start to follow a little more logically. Though since, despite a very conservative and Biblically-minded childhood, I don’t see the basis for those axioms in faith I’d strongly, strongly advise adherents to discard them.

And I suppose if you add a further axiom that for those so inclined, physically gifted, who can find the financial backing, competitive childbearing wreaks no more (but no less) havoc on one’s body or lifestyle than many other physically intense athletic disciplines such as career-professional ballet, track, power lifting or bodybuilding, etc. We just don’t see, say, Billy Jean King, Michael Jordan, Pikaboo Street, or Brett Favre recommending that all children be not only encouraged but required to dedicate their lives to athletics. Nor do they regard any other pursuit as sinful. Nor do they claim that everyone is physically capable of doing so. Nor do they claim that everyone should be pressured to succeed or die trying. Nor do they insist, at all, at all, that people should be forbidden a choice to participate. The women in the post aren’t willing to make those accommodations to themselves or to others.

But even that doesn’t make them stupid. It just makes them intense, uncompromising, driven, passionate, committed, fierce, gonzo, brave, adventurous, dedicated, persevering, rational in the application of their first principles, and a whole bunch of other words and phrases that have been historically used admiringly about men… if not so much, or so admiringly, about women.

Finally, all the above is not a random exercise in “gee, everything is just empowerment isn’t it?” I’m not saying it to somehow celebrate or admire what women can accomplish even when I disagree with them. Nor, as I mentioned earlier, is it a bunch of “takes all kinds to make the world” cultural relativism. Instead it’s to point out that because the proponents are intelligent and motivated rather than intimidated or enthralled to their husbands or ministers the task of persuading them to back off advocating their model as an obligation to be jammed down all out throats is more daunting than we tend to wish… or wish to imagine.


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Anti-Choicers Want Us to See Fewer Abortions As a Win, Let's Focus On Fewer Unplanned, Unwanted Pregnancies Instead

Posted by figleaf on Thu, 2010-04-29 18:23

Summary: The way “reducing abortions” is almost always framed distracts us from the more legitimate, and legitimately pro-choice issue of reducing the number of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies. Here’s what we should be doing instead. And why. And why.

Silvana Naguib, who’s now blogging at TAPPED says…

Ever since President Bill Clinton introduced his succinct position on abortion: “safe, legal, and rare,” the goal of reducing the number of abortions has been a stated aim of abortion rights as well as anti-abortion groups. Last year, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama promised the pope that he would make efforts to reduce the number of abortions in the United States.

But should decreasing abortion rates be a stated goal of the reproductive-justice movement? Aimée Thorne-Thomsen says no. She makes the case that we should instead focus on increasing all options for women, expanding their liberty to make the right choice for them.

She said it here.

I say no too, for basically the same reasons. Framing the issue in terms of numbers of abortions avoided is going about it completely backwards.

Back before Roe was handed down our argument was that abortion was necessary as a fallback for contraceptive failure and/or failure of personal autonomy and/or failure to use contraception due to lack of education, access, affordability, safety, or usability of contraception.

And the reason we framed it that way back then is that we knew that even when it became legal, is that abortion is more expensive, more time-consuming, more uncomfortable, and medically more risky than any other method of avoiding unplanned, unwanted pregnancies.

Point being that making abortion “rare” should only be a highly-desirable outcome of making unwanted, unplanned pregancies rare.

And the obvious way to get there has no, zero, none relationship to restrictions on abortion. Instead it has everything to do with making a variety of contraception options safe, legal, available, reliable, usable, and affordable for women and men. It has everything to do with comprehensive sex education that includes not just “birds and bees” biology, anatomy, and technique but also appropriate modeling of negotiation and respect for decision-makers not just regarding sex but regarding relationships as well. Heck, for extra credit you can even toss abstinence advocacy on top of all that.

And the result of those policies (ok, except maybe the abstinence part) really would make abortion rare. But as a result, not a goal.

Of course no matter how well all of the above might work there will still always be a need for the fundamental right to fall back on abortion. So no matter how rare it becomes abortion will always need to be safe and legal and there.

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Can I just add one more thing about reframing the question away from abortion (where secular and lay opponents work hard to keep it) and towards preventing unplanned, unwanted pregnancy (where they really, really don’t want to go?)

When the issue is framed in terms of abortion then an increase in the raw numbers is considered a “failure” and a decrease is considered “success.” That’s great for Popes and the rest of the nopes, so you can see why they love that way of looking at it.

If instead you start looking at it in terms of education, autonomy, and in terms of safe, affordable, available, useable, and reliable birth control then an increase in the number of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies becomes the point of failure and a corresponding decrease becomes success. And an increase or decrease in abortion becomes a sideshow.

Popes and other nopes prefer to keep the focus on abortion rather than unplanned, unwanted pregnancies because with the former they can pretend they’re part of the solution. With the latter there’s no way they can pretend they’re not part of the problem.


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Feel-Good "Pro-Life" Activism Risks the Lives Even of Women With Planned, Wanted Pregnancies (#Stupak)

Posted by figleaf on Mon, 2009-11-09 14:01

I’m quoting the entirety of Robin Marty’s post about the surgical completion of her miscarriage at RHRealityCheck.org.

This weekend, a group of male pro-life Democrats gambled with women’s health, and women lost. By broadly writing in that insurers can chose whether or not to cover “abortion services,” pro-life amendments don’t just affect their intended victims — women seeking a way out of an unwanted or medically harmful pregnancy. They also affect another group of victims — women whose pregnancies have already ended but have not yet miscarried.

I’m one of those women, and this past Halloween I had what the hospital officially termed an “abortion.”

Hospitals and doctors in general do not have terminology to classify a difference between the termination of a live pregnancy and one in which the fetus has already died. To them, a D&C is a D&C, regardless of the state of the “conception materials” removed. Regardless of how many times I made sure to mention to the staff, either for the sake of my sanity or to spare me some sort of imagined shame, that I was ridding myself of my “dead fetus,” to them, it was all the same.

I had learned the day before that the baby I thought was nearly 12 weeks old had no heartbeat, and had actually died at 8 weeks. I was given three options: wait for a miscarriage to occur on its own, something I was told my body had no intention of doing anytime soon, take medication that would expel the fetus, passing it in my own home (classified a “chemical abortion”) or come in for a D&C to remove the fetal materials.

As much as I struggled with the sudden realization that the pregnancy was over, I also found myself trying to decide financially what I was willing to do. A chemical abortion would cost $40, but I would be alone, bleeding, and it could still be incomplete and I would require a D&C anyway, since my pregnancy was so advanced. Surgery would be quick, total, and under controlled circumstances, but would likely be our full maxed insurance amount of $1500. And of course, there was the free option of waiting for my body to finally realize I wasn’t pregnant, but after 4 weeks the risk of infection was steadily climbing, increasing my chances of future miscarriage, infertility, or even death. With a toddler at home, and still nursing hopes for extending our family some day, this was not an option.

I chose the quick and total route of the D&C, despite the costs, prioritizing my health and the health of possible future children. I was lucky, and could afford to make that choice, because currently, my insurance cannot chose to refuse to cover what the hospital as termed an abortion.

Thanks to the Stupak amendment, that can now change.

Abortion is a very broad term. The pro-life contingent would like you to think it only applies to selfish, irresponsible women, murdering babies out of fear of inconvenience. That’s a caricature they have invented to push their own agenda. Many of the women who seek out abortions are women who have been raped, who have learned that their child could not survive, have learned that giving birth could physically and permanently harm them. Or, thanks to newer and vaguer language, women who have already lost the life they were carrying, and need intervention to save their own.

I was one of the latter. I hope I will be lucky enough to never be again. But if I am, I hope the insurers don’t force me to carry that fetus until I medically harm myself, all for the sake of saying that they do not cover abortion services.

She said it here.

About 14 years ago this month my partner began to miscarry our first planned, wanted pregnancy. We discovered just how shallow “pro-life” commitment to “life” really is. You want to force someone to stay pregnant, boy, those are the folks to call. You want to do anything to actually, you know, keep a wanted “beating heart” beating they generally don’t even understand the question.

The best our chosen-in-an-emergency “pro-life” OB/Gyn could do? “Well, just go home and hope it stops.” After 24 more hours of bloody contractions she reluctantly gave my partner a vacuum extraction. The best part? As she was doing the procedure she admitted that she hadn’t done “very may of these.”

That’s “pro-life” training and the whole “pro-life” mindset for you. I’m sure even Rep. Stupak and the men (and they’re overwhelmingly men) who voted with him probably wouldn’t think that was hunky-dory. But that’s the problem: I’m pretty sure they’re not really thinking about it at all. They’re too busy “feeling good” about themselves.


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Weighing the costs and benefits of early voluntary sterilization

Posted by figleaf on Tue, 2007-07-31 10:44

Ann Friedman of Feministing has a post up about an issue that’s very near and dear to my heart: young, often single people who seek vasectomies or tubal ligations in their late teens and early twenties.

For once, I’m not talking about the anti-choice movement. American Sexuality magazine has a piece describing one young woman’s travails in finding a doctor willing to perform a tubal ligation on her. She’s in her early 20s, and absolutely, positively, 100% certain she never wants children. Never.

“[Planned Parenthood of Boston**] said it was much too permanent and weren’t going to give it to me, plus my insurance wasn’t going to cover it,” recalls Green. What’s more, according to Green, “It was all and only about my age.” She was twenty-two at the time.

Green’s experience is not that unusual. Though no actual laws have ever been put into place, most OBGYNs refuse to provide women under thirty with permanent forms of contraception. Dr. Daniel Wiener, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at McGill University in Montreal, is one such doctor.

With thirty plus years of medical practice, Dr. Wiener finds no good reason for putting otherwise healthy patients in surgery: for one, there are anesthetic risks involved. Plus, tubal ligations are considered elective surgeries (assuming the patient can use other, less invasive forms of birth control). More pressing, still, is the fear that a patient may one day change her mind. Sound familiar?

Read Friedman’s words in context here.

Went there and did that. At age 21, back in the 1970s, it took a little while to find a clinic willing to give me a vasectomy and even at the women’s clinic that finally said yes it took a little talking to before they were sure I was making an informed decision.

Fast forward 20-some years and, as I had prepared for at 21, I met someone and several years after marriage we decided we might like to have children after all. And so, again as I decided back at age 21, we explored a vasectomy reversal with adoption (which costs about the same) as a backup. The reversal worked like a charm and, days after our second child was born, another 15-minute stitchless vasectomy undid all the previous surgeon’s hard work.

But if the reversal hadn’t worked adoption would have been acceptable to both of us.

Bottom line: if there was no such thing as medical progress in vasectomy or tubal-ligation reversal and egg extraction and IVF, if there was no such thing as adoption, if there was such a thing as 100% cold evidence that virtually all who with their eyes open are sterilized at an early age regretted it (I don’t know any who have though I’m sure some do somewhere) then yeah, maybe it would be ok to decline to perform voluntary sterilization on young people. But I just don’t think that’s the case.

Oh yeah, one more thing. The tubal ligation sought in the article Ann references really is a far more intrusive and therefore risky procedure than men’s vasectomies. But that’s not the standard of comparison. Instead how does it compare to, say, breast or cheek implants, nose jobs, labiaplasty, and other voluntary procedures cheerfully undertaken by surgeons.

I really don’t know, even relatively minor abdominal surgery really could be that much riskier than “superficial” plastic surgery. But if not then these guys who decline to perform the surgery really don’t have a leg to stand on.

Update: Friedman adds a point raised by Radical Doula that, of course, poor, uneducated, disabled women and women of color, and southern Appalachian rural whites have historically had a harder time avoiding forcible sterilization than obtaining them voluntarily. For instance:

[Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendal] Holmes wrote for the majority, which upheld the constitutionality of a Virginia law proposing involuntary sterilization of persons believed to be mentally retarded—the “feebleminded,” in the jargon of the day. “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes,” Holmes wrote in Buck v. Bell (1927). “Three generations of imbeciles,” Holmes volunteered, “is enough.”

Randomly Google’d quote located here.

Yikes! I can’t believe I forgot about that case! The cool thing about being pro choice, by the way, and something the ostinsible “pro-life” abortion opponents just don’t get, is that reproductive freedom means reproductive freedom! Not something to be forced on anyone, neither to be denied by cupidity either.

Update: Amanda Marcotte very nicely reinforces the point about choice and autonomy.


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First they came for my belt, then they came for my suspenders

Posted by figleaf on Tue, 2006-11-21 13:48

I’ve mentioned earlier my belief that Bush has won and the Supreme Court will gut Roe v. Wade. Now “to gut” is a more subtle term than “to reverse” although it means the same thing in principle.

Here’s the latest on how they’re likely to gut it from Scott Lemieux of The American Prospect Online Edition.

While one woman forced to endure a greater risk to her health for an utterly silly law is too many, one might reasonably ask — given that the case will not be used to overturn Roe — how much it actually matters whether Stenberg is affirmed. Here’s the answer: Any of the legal rationales for upholding the law contain doctrinal time bombs that could seriously undermine reproductive rights in future cases.

If the Court overturns the health exemption, this will deal a body blow to Casey, giving states hostile to abortion much more leeway to legally harass doctors and patients in ways likely to have a chilling effect on abortion providers. (Remember that D&X abortions are not limited to post-viability abortions.) If the Court gives a free pass to legislatures that make bogus medical claims to evade the health exemption requirement, as the drafters of Federal Partial-Birth Abortion Act did, this will have the same effect with an extra layer of dishonesty added on top. (It will also send a signal to legislatures that the Court will not scrutinize the motives and consequences of abortion regulations with any seriousness, further diluting the “undue burden” restriction.) If, alternatively, the Court upholds the law pending “as applied” challenges, this will make challenges to abortion laws much more difficult and expensive, exacerbating the class inequities already present in abortion access.

And irrespective of the precise rationale the Court ends up citing, the larger problem is that, because the distinction between D&X abortions and any other procedure is wholly arbitrary, legislatures can invent further distinctions and continue to tie the hands of abortion doctors. As Eve Gartner, the lawyer representing Planned Parenthood, put it during the oral argument, “to allow such an expansion of pre-viability abortions that can be banned would set the stage for continued legislative efforts to ban other iterations of the classic D&E method of abortion, until truly there would be nothing left at all of Casey’s holding that it is unconstitutional to ban second-trimester abortions.”

Read the quote in context here.

Having been passionately pro-choice since roughly 1970 this is a bitterly disappointing prospect that the 110th, nor the 111th Congress’s will be unable to mitigate directly no matter how large the True Blue majority. (That die was cast in 2000.) The composition of the court can’t begin to change back in favor of our right to choose until Inauguration Day in January, 2009 at the very earliest!

Now, some influential Texans may believe that gender equality is impossible so long as humanity exists as a species. I believe that unplanned, unwanted pregnancy is an extraordinary obstacle to gender equality on a somewhat shorter timescale. And if the radical/authoritarian minority is in a position to steal our access to contingencies in the face of contraceptive failure (or failure to use contraceptives) then…

... well, then contraception is going to have to get a lot safer, more reliable, more accessible, more affordable, and more easily used correctly.

A couple of myths I’d like to tackle early on:

1) Upholding Casey merely kicks the question back to the individual states. It doesn’t. Instead it creates enough malicious medical malpractice vulnerabilities and other roadblocks that few insurers will want to cover it, few doctors will be willing to perform it, few med schools will be comfortable teaching it, and, therefore, even in states where abortion remains legal few women will have easy access to abortion services. Casey is a big, fat, hairy deal and it’s a case, and thus a right, that Americans are almost certainly going to lose.

2) Don’t bother developing male contraceptives because men aren’t interested. Plenty of us — possibly most — are. It’s just that right now our only meaningful alternatives are (in descending order of reported reliability) vasectomy, condoms, and abstinence. Give us something else between surgery and a barrier method invented in the 16th-Century and chances are we’ll jump on it.

3) No method of contraception is 100% effective, and people won’t always use them correctly, and some people won’t be able to get access to it, so why bother trying at all? Because gender inequality is at the heart of extraordinary, life-shortening, possibility-limiting misery for men, women, and children; because reproductive self-determination is a cornerstone of gender equality; and because we’re at extreme risk of losing the reliable fallback that’s allowed us to lump along with the shitty nostrums and contraptions we like to call modern contraceptive technology.

4) Contraception isn’t a big deal because most abortions are needed for people who can’t or don’t use contraception. Not at all true. Instead 90% of abortions are necessary because contraception failed.


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