MMO Noteworthy: Special Reproductive Helath Supplement

Dems May Waver on Choice, Repro Rights
By Cynthia L. Cooper for Women’s eNews, 14 Jan 05
As the competition heats up for next month's vote on the chair of the Democratic National Party, a worried buzz is growing that the party's pro-choice position is getting shakier.

Teens Opt for Unsafe Sex, Not Parents’ Consent
By Rebecca Vesely for Women’s eNews, 20 Jan 05
A study suggests that teens would forgo birth control if they needed parental consent to receive it from family planning clinics. The study arrives as lawmakers consider whether to mandate parental notification for clinics that receive federal funds.

Study: Access to Plan B Does Not Increase Risky Sex
By Katrina Woznicki for Women’s eNews, 5 Jan 05
A study released today finds that easy access to emergency contraception does not promote risky sexual behavior. The FDA will decide later this month whether to approve the drug for over-the-counter sale to women 16 and older.

Illegal Abortions Rampant in Latin America
By Jen Ross for Women’s eNews, 28 Nov 04
Five thousand women die from clandestine abortions every year in Latin America. It has one of the highest abortion rates in the world, despite its near-universal illegality.

Late-Term Abortion Saved These Women’s Lives
By Molly M. Ginty for Women’s eNews, 28 Oct 04
As the so-called Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act enters the campaign-season debate, three women who have had third-trimester abortions are fighting to preserve access to a procedure that may have saved their lives.

If Roe Falls, States Offer Little Protection
By Ann Pappert for Women’s eNews, 20 Oct 2004
Federal protection of abortion could easily be put at risk by a second Bush term. That's why women should pay vigorous attention to abortion policy in their states, where anti-abortion activists have been furiously at work.

From other news outlets:

Fewer Women Using Birth Control:
Experts see troubling spike in new numbers
By Ceci Connolly, MSNBC, 3 Jan 05
At a time when the medical community has been heartened by a decline in risky sexual behavior by teenagers, a different problem has crept up: More adult women are forgoing birth control, a trend that has experts puzzled -- and alarmed about a potential rise in unintended pregnancies.

Teen boy charged in abortion:
He faces 15-year felony, but girlfriend avoids charges in alleged baseball bat beating
By Chad Halcom, Macomb Daily Staff Writer, 5 Jan 05
Michigan State Police investigating the case have said the young couple sought options to end her pregnancy last fall, but could not obtain an abortion under Michigan law without consent from one of her parents. That apparently led to a series of secret sessions over a 2-week period where the male beat the female's abdomen with a 22-inch souvenir-style bat until she bled and expelled the fetus in October. The fetus was discovered buried in Richmond Township in November.

Center Sues FDA for Denying Women Over-the-Counter Access to Emergency Contraception
FDA Internal Memo Suggests Agency Did Not Follow Regulations
Press Release from the Center for Reproductive Rights, 21 Jan 2005
The Center for Reproductive Rights filed suit against the Acting Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration in federal court for failing to approve the emergency contraceptive product Plan B for over-the-counter status. Emergency contraception (EC), sometimes known as “the morning after pill,” reduces the risk of pregnancy by approximately 89 percent when it is taken within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse, according to a study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Embryo Adoptions Raise Legal Questions
When Science Creates Life, What to Do With the Unwanted?
ABC News Original Report, 18 Nov 04
When couples go through fertility treatments, such as in vitro fertilization, usually many more eggs are fertilized than are used. When a couple decides they have enough children, if there are still viable embryos available, they must decide whether to donate their embryos to research, thaw them and let them die, or donate them to a couple who is unable to conceive. Nearly a half-million leftover embryos are in limbo right now.

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commentary

Choice Language
Abortion is a right that ends in sorrow. Democratic rhetoric in the future must acknowledge this fact.
By Sarah Blustain, The American Prospect, 6 Dec 04
“It’s the stridency, the insistence, the repetition of a ‘woman’s right to choose.’ It rubs me the wrong way — and I’m one of those classic 30-something, northeastern, educated, pro-choice women who believes the message. I’m tormented by the idea that even as I support Democratic candidates — and, yes, on this issue — I’m turned off by their abortion rhetoric”

It,s Not Just Abortion, Stupid: Progressives and Abortion
B y Carole Joffe for Dissent Magazine, Winter 2005
Many progressives are now undergoing a reevaluation of the “costs” of a commitment to abortion rights. Abortion can best be defended if it is framed as one element of a larger platform of sexual and reproductive rights and services. There exists now a powerful opening to expose the hypocrisy of “family values” conservatives who seek to withhold from working Americans virtually all that they need— contraception, meaningful sex education, health care for the uninsured, living wages, affordable childcare, as well as abortion care—to raise healthy families.

Is There Life After Roe? How To Think About the Fetus
By Frances Kissling, Conscience, Winter 2004/2005
”The most powerful of prochoice messages has been the multi-faceted question, “Who Decides?” which highlights both women’s rights and keeping government out of the bedroom without ever mentioning either. Inherent in our focus on women’s rights has been our belief that fetal life does not attain, at any point in pregnancy, a value that is equivalent to that of born persons, most specifically women, infants or children who are most often cited in discussions of abortion. Our belief about what value fetal life may possess is not yet well articulated and prochoice supporters are not of one mind on this question. Neither it should be noted are the world’s religions, ethicists or theologians of one mind on this matter.” Conscience is the journal of Catholics For a Free Choice.

An Open Letter to Religious Leaders on Abortion as a Moral Decision
The Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, 17 Jan 05
“We affirm women as moral agents who have the capacity, right and responsibility to make the decision as to whether or not abortion is justified in their specific circumstances. That decision is best made when it includes a well- informed conscience, serious reflection, insights from her faith and values, and consultation with a caring partner, family members, and spiritual counselor. Men have a moral obligation to acknowledge and support women’s decision-making.”

Looking ahead to Bush’s new term, groups see showdown over abortion
By Matthew E. Berger, JTA News Service, 18 Jan 2005
Jewish groups are hoping to enlist rabbis in the struggle to ensure that abortion rights are not eroded during President Bush’s second term.

For Millions of American Women, Roe Is Already History
by Laura Kaminker for CommonDreams.org, 24 Jan 05
“The choice community celebrates the Roe anniversary as a kind of emancipation day, but it is unlikely we will see too many more of those celebrations. Roe will almost certainly be reversed soon. Abortion will be legal in some states and not others. State laws will vary widely in the circumstances under which a pregnancy may be terminated - as is now the case, only more so.”

A Post-Roe Postcard
By Sharon Lerner, The Nation, reprinted on AlterNet, 22 Jan 05
Thirty-two years ago the right to have an abortion was affirmed by the Supreme Court. Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi is marking the anniversary of Roe v. Wade with an official proclamation declaring the seven days leading up to the anniversary “a week of prayer regarding the sanctity of human life.”

Full Frontal Offense
By Rebecca Hyman, Bitch Magazine, reprinted on AlterNet, 11 Jan 05
There’s a new front in the battle for abortion rights – the literal front, that is, of a T-shirt designed by writer and feminist activist Jennifer Baumgardner that proclaims "I had an abortion." The shirt, initially for sale on Planned Parenthood’s national web site and now available on Clamor magazine's web site, has generated controversy among not only the anti-abortion community but also pro-choice feminists.

The A-word
By Laura Barcella for Salon.com, 20 Sept 04
A new group of feminist activists are promoting brutal honesty about abortion -- including wearing T-shirts that say you’ve had one.

RU Ashamed?
By Claire Barnett, AlterNet. 2 Dec 04
A physician who performs abortions finds that RU-486, the abortion pill, is safe. What is dangerous is the way society stigmatizes women who take it.

Dr. Fraud
By Kari Lydersen for AlterNet, 14 Jun 2004
A fake abortion provider lures in desperate poor women and then keeps them hanging until it's too late.

Abortion law change could harm Black Women
By Tonyaa Weathersbee, Black America Web, 7 Oct 04
A recent article in Mother Jones magazine about the bad old days of back-alley abortions made me shudder.

What We Talk About When we Talk About Reproductive Rights
Interview with Dorothy Roberts by Moira Brennan, Ms. Magazine, April/May 2001
White women’s reproductive choices may have been curtailed throughout U.S. history, says Roberts, but black women's choices have been, more often than not, eliminated.

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first person

Crossing Over
By Robin Ringleka for AlterNet, September 2004
“I marched against abortion rights and was adamantly pro-life... until I got pregnant.”

Children of Privilege
By Meredith Michaels for The Nation, October 2004
“Unlike many of my contemporaries, I did not end up butchered in a back alley or consigned to early single motherhood. Nor did I have to endure the pain and shame of a sequestered pregnancy only to turn over the child I had borne to a nameless, faceless future. My place in the upper-class pantheon remained secure because favors were done, slates were wiped clean.”

My Non-Abortion Era
By Sarah Buttenwieser for LiteraryMama (www.literarymama.com)
“What strikes me as ironic is that infertility treatments are on the rise just as the right to abortion becomes ever more tenuous, ever more fragile. Without access to abortion for all women, the euphemistic medical reduction, which the infertility community relies upon increasingly as its technologies create greater numbers of multiple pregnancies, might be the next form of abortion in peril.”

Aborting my marriage
By Laura Walters for Salon.com, August 19, 2004
“With or without William, the idea of having a child overwhelmed me. I had few local friends or family, and lived in a city I detested. And yes, I was selfish: The prospect of having a child and raising it on my own felt insurmountable, like the end of my life… Yet when I suggested terminating the pregnancy, I hoped, against all the evidence, that William would pull me back from the precipice, assure me that we’d work things out, that he’d take care of me. He didn’t. Panicked about the impact a child would have on his career, he readily agreed to an abortion. I scheduled the procedure for the earliest date I could have it.”

I'm Not Sorry
“I'mNotSorry.net was created for the purpose of showing women that exercising their legal right to terminate their pregnancy is not the blood-spattered guilt trip so many make it out to be. It is not intended to make women’s decisions for them, but to provide information to make the choice that will be best for them. This site exists to tell women that it’s okay not to feel sad or ashamed after an abortion. You are not a baby killer. You are not irresponsible. You are not selfish. And, above all, you are not evil.”
I'mNotSorry.net story archives

Behind Every Choice is a Story
Follow link below for a sample of personal stories on abortion released by Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 2003.

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histories

“Roe” Wants Abortion Case Reversed
20 June 2003, CBS News
The former plaintiff known as “Jane Roe” in the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized abortion sought to have the case overturned in a motion filed Tuesday that asks the courts to consider new evidence that abortion hurts women

When There Was No Choice
By Sharon Lerner, Village Voice, Reprinted in AlterNet, 20 Jan 05
On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, those who remember the days of illegal abortion fight to keep that time a distant memory.

Reproductive Rights Pioneers Celebrated
in Honor of the 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP) celebrates the lives and achievements of two remarkable women: Drs. Elizabeth Connell and Louise Tyrer, with their compelling stories from the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, as physicians protecting women’s lives before Roe v. Wade. Both women saw firsthand the devastation and loss of life before abortion was legal in the United States. Today, both express fear and rage about the current state of reproductive rights and family planning in this country and what the future may hold.

History Lesson on Canada’s Abortion Laws
Dr. Henry Morgentaler: Fighting Canada’s Abortion Laws
In 1969, Dr. Henry Morgentaler emerged as one of Canada's most controversial figures when he broke the law and opened the country's first abortion clinic. Over the next two decades, the Montreal doctor would be heralded a hero by some Canadians and be called a murderer by others as he fought to change Canada's abortion laws. Fom the CBC Archives

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organizations & online resources

The Access Project
The Access Project is a non-profit organization dedicated to expanding women’s access to reproductive choice. Only when women of all socioeconomic levels have access to abortion services in secure settings will they truly have the right to choose.

American Civil Liberties Union Reproductive Rights Project
Our mission is to ensure that every person can make informed, meaningful decisions about reproduction free from intrusion by the government. Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, we aim to protect access to the full spectrum of reproductive health care, from sexuality education and family planning services, to prenatal care and childbearing assistance, to abortion counseling and services.

The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals
The Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP) is a non-profit membership association composed of highly qualified and committed experts in reproductive health. These leading professionals include physicians, advanced practice clinicians (nurse practitioners, nurse midwives, physician assistants), researchers, educators, pharmacists, and other professionals in reproductive health. ARHP and its members provide reproductive health services or education, conduct reproductive health research, or influence reproductive health policy. ARHP was founded as a physician education component to Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1963.

Center for Reproductive Rights
CRR is a legal advocacy organization founded in 1992 to protect and advance women’s reproductive rights worldwide. According to the CRR mission statement, “Reproductive rights, the foundation for women’s self-determination over their bodies and sexual lives, are critical to women’s equality. We believe laws and policies that protect and advance these rights are essential. They must allow women the freedom to decide whether and when to have children. They must respect women’s ability to exercise their reproductive choices without coercion. They must also secure women’s access to basic health services, including contraception, abortion, education, and safe

ChoiceLinkUp.com
ChoiceLinkUp.com, a directory listing for information about reproductive health and rights, including abortion. The youth-oriented site offers links to accurate health information, services, pro-choice organizations, rights groups, resources, and discussion sites. ChoiceLinkUp.com is a project of The Abortion Conversation Project, a non-profit project founded by a coalition of independent abortion providers who “believe that the conversation about abortion in this country must change to include the reality of abortion. The real life experiences of providers and women themselves will enable people to understand and appreciate the complex moral decision making surrounding a pregnancy decision.”

The Feminist Majority Foundation's National Clinic Access Project
The National Clinic Access Project helps keep abortion clinics open and safe. Through public education, community organizing, emergency clinic crisis survival assistance, and a clinic violence watch, the National Clinic Defense Project has helped keep clinics open in over 30 cities in 13 states which were threatened with crippling anti-abortion blockades and violence.

National Abortion Federation
“NAF is unique in that our mission is focused specifically on keeping abortion safe, legal, and accessible. Our work can be broken out into these three fundamental aspects of our mission: Safe – NAF gives our members the education and professional support they need to provide the highest quality abortion care; Legal – NAF provides the medical and patient perspectives in debates about abortion policies; Accessible – NAF gives women the resources they need to make the informed decisions about their pregnancies.

National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL)
As an organization, NARAL has fought over the past 30 years to improve access to contraceptive options and to other forms of reproductive health care and information. NARAL Pro-Choice America works to educate Americans and officeholders about the broad range of issues encompassing a woman’s right to choose and elect pro-choice candidates at all levels of government. In their annual report, “Who Decides,” NARAL gave the nation an overall grade of D-, down from C- in 2002.

Who Decides: The Status of Women’s Reproductive Rights in the United States
NARAL, January 2005 (index in HTML)
Full report, 86 pages in PDF

National Advocates for Pregnant Women
NAPW has a vision of a world where women enjoy full personhood and where neither pregnancy nor drug use serve as an excuse to dehumanize and punish select groups of people. “Our mission is to secure the human and civil rights, health, and welfare of pregnant and parenting women while protecting children from punitive and misguided state policies. We advocate on behalf of all women, especially those who are most marginalized: women of color, low-income women, and women who use drugs.”

National Network of Abortion Funds
NNAF is an organization dedicated to safeguarding financial support for abortion and seeking new funds to meet the needs of under-serviced women.

Planned Parenthood
Through affiliated health centers nationwide Planned Parenthood provides reproductive health care and sexual health information. Planned Parenthood believes in the fundamental right of each individual, throughout the world, to manage his or her fertility, regardless of the individual’s income, marital status, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or residence.

Pro-Choice Public Education Project
The Pro-Choice Public Education Project (PEP) is a collaborative project governed by the country's leading national pro-choice organizations dedicated to building the next generation of pro-choice leaders and supporters. PEP puts choice on young women's radar screens, educates them about threats to their reproductive rights, and helps young women identify with pro-choice ideologies.

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice
RCRC is a diverse theological and religious coalition founded in 1973 committed to preserve women’s right to choose. Our rational, healing perspective looks beyond the bitter abortion debate to seek solutions to pressing problems such as unintended pregnancy, the spread of HIV/AIDS, inadequate health care and health insurance, and the severe reduction in reproductive health care services. We support access to sex education, family planning and contraception, affordable child care and health care, and adoption services as well as safe, legal, abortion services, regardless of income. We work for public policies that ensure the medical, economic, and educational resources necessary for healthy families and communities that are equipped to nurture children in peace and love.

In Canada:

Canadian Abortion Rights Action League
CARAL is an organization that advocates for women’s reproductive rights through education and lobbying. “We are Canada’s pro-choice, volunteer organization working exclusively to ensure that all women have total reproductive freedom to exercise the right to safe, accessible abortion.”

Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada
The Planned Parenthood Federation of Canada is a pro-choice, charitable organization dedicated to promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights in Canada and internationally.

Many of the organizations listed in this section coordinate legislative action campaigns to preserve women’s reproductive rights in the U.S. NARAL also has active local and state chapters and several of these groups may be recruiting volunteers in your area. To learn more or to take action, follow the provided links.

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February 2005

Shawna Goodrich contributed to this month’s noteworthy.

editor@mothersmovement.org