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- Health Care Inequality is Key to Abortion Rates
It's a crime that we need to expend so much energy answering the absurd charges made by anti-choicers about the rate of abortions in communities of color. Charges like - we're waging big marketing campaigns targeting women of color, or that women of color use abortion as birth control, or women of color don't use condoms or contraceptives. All those charges are just malicious BS - made by people and groups who are vehemently against birth control and prevention and refuse to fund such programs. And who jump at every opportunity to de-fund programs that disproportionately impact poor women and women of color .
Hello! It's all about access fellas! Thankfully, Dr Melissa Gilliam, an African American woman, a physician, and a reproductive-health specialist, speaks truth to absurd claims by discussing the real-life consequences of unequal access to good health care. Dr. Gilliam is associate professor of obstetrics/gynecology at the University of Chicago and chairwoman of the Guttmacher Institute board of directors. She recently penned this excellent Op/Ed which ran in the August 10th edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
This should put an end to the absurd charges, but I'm betting it probably won't. Pass this article along to your friends. Everyone needs to be educated on this topic.
- Abortion Doesn't Cause Mental Illness
Here's another absurd claim - that abortion causes mental illness - promulgated by evildoers on the anti-choice side for decades. This should also be put to rest, but don't hold your breath.
Here's the good news - at the recent gathering of the American Psychology Association, their Mental Health and Abortion Task Force issued a 91-page report which says, in brief, "...there is no evidence that a single abortion causes significant mental health problems."
The New York Times summarizes it beautifully in an article in today's edition.
The false claims of mental health problems following abortion are put out there in bogus "studies" by the same people who brought you the bogus breast cancer and abortion lies.As if living in the 1950's, the MTA ruled that a pregnant officer was "unfit for duty," took away her gun and sent her to work in a toll booth. Even though her doctor pronounced the 10-week pregnant Lori Ann DiPalo fit for duty, the MTA thought otherwise.
You can read about this absurdity here.
Is it just me or does standing in a toll booth on your feet for 8 hours and sucking up car and truck fumes sound more unhealthy than enforcing the law?
Author, poet, activist and feminist Katha Pollitt has been speaking truth to power from the pages of The Nation for almost 30 years. The Washington Post called Katha Pollitt's 'Subject to Debate' column"the best place to go for original thinking on the left." The NYC native has won major awards for her writing - including one from Planned Parenthood. Her most recent book, "Learning to Drive: And Other Life Lessons" is currently available in hardback from booksellers like Amazon.
But that's not just why I love Katha Pollitt.
I love Katha Pollitt most because no one I know writes with such passion and clarity about womens reproductive health and freedom as she does. And nobody exposes political attempts to deny a woman her reproductive freedom better than Katha Pollitt.
Katha's recent post on her The Nation blog spot, "And Another Thing," is a perfect case-in-point.
"Stealth Attack on Reproductive Rights" smartly links Bush's attempt to further restrict access to abortion with simultaneous attempts by his party's extremist right wing to deny a woman access to birth control.
As Katha Pollitt writes,
"...There are several disturbing elements to this story. One is that even as it fades into history, the Bush Administration is catering to the anti-choice movement's larger agenda of making contraception harder to obtain. And, "...another dangerous feature of the proposed rules is that they redefine contraception as abortion."
We are at a critical point in our political history. Great damage could be done to reproductive rights as this administration prepares to exit, stage far right.
Read Katha's article, pass it along to your friends, and contact your Senator and your Congressperson and demand that every attempt be made to stop these rules changes.
And on Nov. 2 - Vote! - as if your freedom depended on it - because it does!
I've briefly discussed Bush's plan to deny women access to abortion and birth control before he leaves office. Since then the news has become the subject of editorial pages across the country, and I want to share one of those with you.
It's Joan Malin's Op/Ed in the current issue of METRO - hot off the presses as it hits newsstands in NYC, Boston and Philadelphia on Friday, August 6th. Joan is president & CEO of Planned Parenthood of New York City and understands what's at stake as well as anyone.
It’s 3 a.m. and your sister is in need of emergency contraception. She goes to her closest hospital emergency room and asks for it. Instead of being given this backup method of birth control, she is instead given a dose of heavy judgment and turned away by a health care provider who believes birth control is “wrong.”
Read more ... and let us know what you think.
Next up - why I love Katha Pollitt.
How many of you remember the story of "Nayirah," the 15-year old Kuwaiti girl who shocked a public hearing of Congress' Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990? She testified that she "saw Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators ... and left the children to die on the cold floor." This "story" was widely reported in the media, reached approximately 35 million people, and helped demonize Iraqis in American public opinion.
Truth was, it is was all bullshit. Made up by PR behemoth Hill & Knowlton who was hired by the Kuwaiti government to generate support for U.S. entry into the first Gulf War.
The young woman was later unmasked as the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, and Kuwaiti hospital officials interviewed after the Gulf War said no infants had been dumped from incubators.
Truth is always the first casualty of war. And in the war over the right to abortion, teen health and confidentiality, truth is once again the first victim.
This time the battle is being waged in California and the issue is Proposition 4, a ballot measure that would require parents to be notified before an abortion is performed on a woman under the age of 18. Known officially as the "Waiting Period and Parental Notification Before Termination of Minor’s Pregnancy Amendment" it is more commonly referred to by it's backers as "Sarah's" Law.
Truth is, there really is no "Sarah." "Sarah" was actually Jammie Garcia Yanez-Villegas, who sadly died in Texas in 1994 - her death allegedly caused by an infection contracted during an abortion procedure in a Houston clinic. The backers of Proposition 4 have long claimed that had there been a parental notification law in California "Sarah" would never have died.
Truth is, "Sarah" didn't live in California. She lived in Texas, and although 15, she was in a common-law marriage and already had one child at home. Texas recognizes common-law marriage and does not view a married 15-year-old as a minor. So, you see, "Sarah" would never have been covered by California's proposed law.
And once again truth is the first victim of war. Backers of Prop 4 made up an outrageous and shameful lie in order to push an unnecessary and potential harmful law. The PR merchants behind Prop 4 have sacrificed truth in order to fire up the voters. Simply put, Californians have been lied to, and if they have been lied to about who "Sarah" really is, how much of the language of Prop 4 is lies?
A lawsuit co-sponsored by Planned Parenthood Affiliates and filed Friday in Sacramento County Superior Court asks the secretary of state to remove the girl's story and other information it deemed misleading, including any reference to "Sarah's Law," from the material submitted for the official voter guide.
Backers of the initiative said they learned the details after submitting the ballot argument last month and would review the lawsuit before deciding whether to amend the language for the voter guide. "We will modify the way we present Sarah to be accurate with the information." But we don't think the use of her story is marred."
Yeah, right! For more information on Proposition 4 and reasons to work for it's defeat see here.
