If you're going to call about HR3: a script via Sady Doyle

With a crappy piece of legislation like this - where the hate and cruelty are almost too much to bear - it helps to have a script when you're calling. Luckily, Sady Doyle provides one:

Sady Doyle - Script for Calling the Democrats Who Support HR3

I think it's still a little too long (staffers appreciate brevity) so I would cut it a little shorter, after you ask for the staffer who handles healthcare or women's issues:

1. Mention the bill # right away so it's at the top of the message: Hi, I'm calling to leave a comment about HR 3.

2. Tell the staffer what you want the Rep to do (again, so it's at the top of the message): Please oppose HR3.

3. Then boil it down to your top 3 bullets so they can summarize it for the legislator or the main staffer on this issue:

Going beyond Hyde, in an unprecedented way, HR 3 strips current rights from rape survivors, women and girls who need abortions.

HR 3 redefines rape to mean only sexual assault involving 'force' will be covered, contradicting existing statutes that already defines sexual assault. Sexual assault statistics and rape victim advocates show that 70% of rapes aren’t “forcible.”

HR3 also makes it much harder for women to purchase private insurance that may include abortion services, harder for companies to cover women who need abortions, and strengthens “conscience” clauses, which means doctors can refuse to provide critical reproductive medical care to women at any time. It is discriminatory.

4. Then give your contact information and let them know you expect a response: I look forward to hearing from the Congressman on this matter.

5. Thank them and hang up.

Pass it on.

on the unintended consequences of bad policy and parental notifications

I don't think anything I write this year will compare to this post at Fugitivus:

Laws restricting access to medical services are laws restricting access to medical services. They are not laws creating family talks, better worlds, or moral teenagers. They are laws creating restrictions to medical services, which people do not seek unless they need them. Laws creating restrictions to medical services are laws creating restrictions to services people need and need desperately. You can argue that the lawmakers had some kind of noble intentions in mind — I will not buy it, but you can argue that. But you cannot argue that once the law has been in effect and created an inability to comply, and yet remained unchanged. If this was a law about notifying parents, it would have addressed how to notify parents. If this was a law about how to seek a bypass, it would have addressed how to seek a bypass. Since it didn’t address either of those things, this is obviously a law about something else. You only get one guess about what that something else is.

The whole post is long but powerful (especially her memory of what it's like to be on the street and needing to come up with plans b/c/d/e & f.  This section is almost enough to convince me that most policy discussions/solutions need to start with/come from the people who are actually experiencing what others are trying to legislate or control.  Everything else is just academic or intellectual bullshit meddling.)

Because of my job I've become aware that most legislators don't actually read finer points of policy implications for a new piece of legislation; they want the bullet points.  So we give it to them, probably to the detriment of thoughtful policy development.  Some of them ask for clarification but they appear to rely on instinct, some electoral soothe-saying, and a smattering of hope that the nit-picky administrative details will be resolved in committee while all they have to do is jump on as sponsor and then vote on it when it's called.

Well, unfortunately, the devil is in those very details they are likely to overlook.

We rely on our elected officials to take care of the public's trust but they are often too 'busy' (see how I give them the benefit of the doubt there?) to actually do it critically, or thoroughly.

Illinois' parental notification law survived a legal challenge and will be in place as of this year.  At least, that's what they tell us.  Think our bankrupt, overtaxed and janky state system will have a firm enough hand to enforce this badly constructed law?  I'm not holding my breath.

Meanwhile, the anti-woman/anti-choice faction has succeeded in building a wall separating young women in crisis from their legal access to a needed legal, medically-approved procedure.

Golf clap, frakkers.

privacy and punishment: how much time should i do?

Let's say I'm with my partner and, despite our best efforts, one of his swimmers gets through; let's also say that my right to control my fertility (either through consistent and regular access to birth control and/or abortion services) has been rendered illegal. The right to medical privacy, as well as the right to a safe and legal abortion, has been taken away from me and millions of other women in my state.

How much time should I do for getting an illegal abortion?




Watch the video, read about the campaign here and share your thoughts.

What I noticed? The unwillingness to follow a line of thought all the way to its logical conclusion and, therefore, be confronted with the consequences of what you're really advocating.

To anti-reproductive justice activists, women really are just afterthoughts.

hands off my ovaries, part one million and ten

Abortion Proposal Sets Condition on Aid - NYTimes.com

This is the proposed intent:

The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.

Under the draft of a proposed rule, hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools would have to sign “written certifications” as a prerequisite to getting money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

How this report proposes to define abortion:

“any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

[bold emphasis mine]

This is the potential impact (from Womens eNews):

Organizations that don't comply with the proposed rule could be forced to scale back services due to lack of funding, leaving women who rely on government-funded family-planning clinics with fewer options for affordable services and supplies, Richards said. That would compound their financial difficulties at a time of rising rates of unemployment and higher costs for food and fuel.
...
The regulation could also undermine state laws that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims and that require health care insurance plans to cover contraceptives if they cover other prescription medications, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights lobby in Washington, D.C.

What else is impacted?
My fricking right to control my fertility without having a bunch of patriarchal asshats forcing me to tie my tubes (or stop having sex.)

Why am I kvetching about tying my tubes?
Because if hospitals are suddenly to be staffed by squeamish religious types who believe the Pill (and other devices) kills homunculi babies, then the only way to prevent pregnancy, clearly, would be to sterilize myself.

But would that really be cost effective for me (or any woman, for that matter)?
Tying ones tubes is not like having a vasectomy; it is not a simple snip-snip that can be done with a local anasthetic, in a soothing doctor's office while a little blue napkin lays across your lap. You don't go home and stay in bed for a few days with an ice pack between your legs. It's major surgery. It's invasive, expensive and hellishly inconvenient.

It looks like this.

Contraception, on the other hand, looks like this .

I've already done this, thank you very much. I would be more than a little resentful if I had to to it again.

As for the petty, ignorant, anti-woman Bush administration, I wonder if they convene meetings with agendas titled "How to Do the Most Damage in What Little Time We Have Left."

'Fertilized egg is a person' ballot proposal scares doctor : The Rocky Mountain News

that does it.
i need a drink.

Reproductive Justice Bill in Illinois Mobilizes New Allies | Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org

Reproductive Justice Bill in Illinois Mobilizes New Allies Reproductive Health RHRealityCheck.org

over on my other spaces, i've been writing pretty vociferously about reproductive rights and the religious right's push to limit access to contraception. nutty though they may be, they're organized and well-funded, which could mean the difference between your ability to control your fertility the way you want and being forced to remain pregnant if you don't want to be pregnant because someone thinks an egg is a person.

anyway, there's a bill on the books here in illinois that you need to be aware of. read about it (check out the bill number on the illinois general assembly site here) and start to call your representative to get his/her thoughts on women being able to create the families they want.

don't assume you know where your representative stands; look into their voting records, write out some talking points and ring up their capitol office and see where they stand on HB 5610.

come on!
pretend you're on the West Wing and do some grassroots lobbying.

Blog for Choice: there's no right without access

Let's talk about a great big elephant in the room before folks start celebrating the decreased need for abortion: access. From the Chicago Tribune article:

Bill Beckman, director of the Illinois Right to Life Committee, said he sees the national decline in abortion numbers as a victory for anti-abortion efforts."A number of states over the last five or six years have enhanced their pro-life laws, such as requirements for informed consent and parental notice," said Beckman. "When those laws take effect, the rate of abortion drops. I think the data they're getting is reflecting that change."

What Beckman calls an 'enhancement', I call 'building a financial box around women to make sure they're forced to give birth.'

Clinics offering abortion services are in a decline all over the country; in fact, since 2000, 77 clinics have closed and only 29 have opened. For some women in urban areas - with private doctors and access to a wide range of family planning options - access might not be such a hardship (yes, I know there are other circumstances that could slow down access to abortion in urban areas, like cash, but let's just deal with this.)

But for women in rural areas, travel could mean driving up to 50 miles to get to the nearest abortion provider. To get there and back, that woman would most likely have to schedule time off work taken as a sick day (perhaps an unpaid sick day and perhaps more than one day, particularly if that state requires a nonsensical 'waiting' period), loss of wages, perhaps arrangement of childcare for her other children (which adds to that woman's economic burden), increased travel expenses (i.e., gas) and just the physically wearying fact that she is driving to another county or state for a doctor's appointment.

I don't know about you, but I get pissed off if I have to go outside of my area code to see my ob/gyn, much less another state. And what does it cost me? A walk down the street from my office for a few blocks or, at most, a $7 cab ride if I take a cab from my house.

It is an undue hardship for a woman in downstate Illinois, or another rural area, to take two days off work for her abortion. Roadblocks to access basically put a woman needing an abortion between the proverbial rock and financial hard place. I think it's neat how the anti-choice folks have cut off a woman's reproductive rights from other realities in her life, like the economic ones. For them what's important is the unborn child; nevermind that there is a material cost to a woman's life if she has a child her life can't support (for whatever reason that it can't.)

In this next election there are some things to think about, the most important of which will be deciding which candidate will be able to ensure women have access to full reproductive health services. A lot of my friends are comfortable if Roe v. Wade stands, but can we rely on that? Speaking with a lawyer friend tonight, she said that Roe v. Wade is probably one vote short of being knocked over in our forseeable future. We can probably anticipate 2-3 Supreme Court vacancies in the immediate future. Which Presidential candidate will have the best chance to appoint Supreme Court justices willing to uphold Roe v. Wade? Can we safely rely on a Huckabee, a Romney, an Edwards or an Obama to act in women's best interests? Or can we only rely on a Clinton?

And action on the SCOTUS isn't the only thing to worry about. At the state level, over the past decade, states have become more aggressive in introducing legislation to limit, if not outright ban, access to abortion; states like Kansas, Missouri, The Dakotas, Wyoming, Utah, Iowa, Colorado, Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and Arkansas either already have, or are in the process of introducing, some of the most restrictive laws to affect a woman's right to control her own fertility. States aren't backing away from this fight; anti-choice grassroots lobbying has proven most effective at this level, while we scramble to keep a fricking clinic open in Aurora. (You can check out the states with the least access to abortion at the Abortion Acess Project website here.)

What will happen in Illinois if our next governor is Republican? (Not so inconceivable, considering how Blago is alienating absolutely everyone.) Will the women of Illinois still enjoy access to birth control without the interference of pharmacists? Will we be able to rely on timely access of Plan B birth control? Will we be able to rely on the shrinking number of clinics that offer a wide range of reproductive health services to women? Or will we suddenly have to familiarize ourselves with the days of the underground Jane network, like back in the day? Will we find our family planning needs taking a back seat to a man's outdated, patriarchal ideas of female sexuality and autonomy? Will we suddenly find ourselves planning group trips to Canada or New York or California for a simple doctor's appointment?

The right to control our fertility does not exist if we do not have access to those services that allow us to control our fertility. Access isn't just for the women, like me, who have good medical benefits and live in a city and can rattle off where the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic is; it's for women who make barely minimum wage and live in places like Bloomington, Alton or Aurora and there's no one around to help them. And that's what the issue of access means to me: helping women get over the situation they find themselves in, not making them stew in it for months or years because it justifies a stranger's religion. How does it help that woman to wait days to get done what she already decided days ago? How does it help a woman when we make her empty her wallet to visit a doctor? How does it help a woman when you force her to give birth and take away her ability to control her own fertility?

I guess it doesn't.

Take the Plan B Survey!

once more, with feeling: bush appoints another weirdo

this time, it's a woman. dr. susan orr used to work for the Family Research Council, a conservative organization known for its anti-birth control stances, and is now going to be in charge of family planning for low-income people.

what does dr. orr think? she thinks contraception isn't a medical necessity because 'fertility isn't a disease.' well, no shit. contraception is just something we women need to have because, otherwise, we'd be pregnant all the fucking time.

i'm truly puzzled at this administration and the folks who don't see what's completely wrong with this picture. birth control is good. it allows a family to control its fertility; it allows a woman to determine when and if she is going to get pregnant; and when access is wide, paired with education about contraception, abortion numbers go down.

but you know what it is: birth control = sex.
it's a marker that sex is in the makin' and unless you're in a proper heterosexual, monogamous marriage then having sex makes you a slut. (and if you're a dude, having sex just makes you a dude.)

so...birth control = sex = slut.

so basically, orr's appointment is just another step in the social conservative's movement to shame/punish women who have sex.

of course, planned parenthood has sent out an alert to oppose orr's appointment.
you know what you have to do.

The Associated Press: Family-Planning Appointment Denounced

it's not over: Harassment in Aurora | RHRealityCheck.org

i almost did something bad today.

a coworker showed me a mailer she got in the post sponsored by the folks at Pro-Life Action League. it was chock full of ridiculous inflammatory misinformation about Planned Parenthood ("they encourage sex before marriage! they think babies are smelly!") and it made me so angry that i did something that was a little nuts:

i looked up the home address of eric scheidler, the communications director for Pro-Life Action League and son of joe scheidler who's the patriarch leading the local charge against the folks at Planned Parenthood.

i copied the address. i thought about posting it here and telling pro-choicers to use it and send the scheidlers a little taste of their own harrassment.

but i had an icky feeling. i felt shame at taking a political fight to the doorstep of a family of 10 (they have 8 kids) to scream at them for hating people like me, for thinking that their grip on righteousness allows them to harrass and violate the privacy of women like me.

why don't the pro-lifers feel that shame?

Real Time: Harassment in Aurora RHRealityCheck.org

(p.s. pro life folk say Planned Parenthood slandered joe scheidler with one of their ads. this interview with eric zorn says otherwise.)

aurora becoming new battlefield for reproductive health access

Groups join growing protest of Aurora Planned Parenthood clinic -- chicagotribune.com

400 folks who like fetuses more than they like women to maybe 36 pro-choicers.
what's wrong with this picture?

why are there always more of them than there are of us?
is it because we don't have as much leisure time to cross state and county lines to hold a picket sign?
is it because we all have day jobs?

frak.

throw Planned Parenthood some support.
they need all the help they can get.

a freaking messy week

if you're hiding in your apartment because of taxes, the v-tech shootings and watching alberto gonzales gave you gas, then add one more thing to the mix: the SCOTUS decided this week to uphold a ban on 'partial birth abortions'. big deal, right? we wouldn't choose that procedure anyway.

sometimes, what we would 'choose' ain't the point. sometimes, like this week, the decision is made for us. read some excellent analysis at the handy dandy roundup from Alas: Round-up of posts about Gonzales v Carhart (Updated)

lock it down, folks.

i think i just got heartburn.

no longer just a hidden paranoia amongst the pro-choice, the new evangelicals' 'war' on contraception has finally broken the surface. i hate being right!

i love all the space given to the anti-family planning side while the pro-family planning side is given just a few inches toward the end, legitimizing the idea that people (mostly women) shouldn't have the right to use contraception.

Abortion foes' new rallying point | Chicago Tribune

so.
all those married ladies on the pill or using the sponge, diaphragm or IUD? forget it.
all those married guys who don't want to get a vasectomy and so use condoms? too bad.
everyone else who doesn't want to get pregnant (for various reasons) and who don't believe the same as others about the place of sex in a relationship (or out of one)? yeah, too bad.

sex is only for married folks, people. the fundies have said so.
and now they're going to FORCE you to be celibate.

whether you like it or not.

What Happens When There Is No Plan B?

did anybody see this??
where was i when this came out?

below is a story about real-life consequences when Plan B isn't available to normal, everyday women. unbelievable.

who is still thinking that women shouldn't be able to retain *full* control of their reproductive lives??

Dana L. What Happens When There Is No Plan B?

I think people who drive without seatbelts deserve what's coming to them.

You drove without a seatbelt and now you're crying. You should have known better. You should have made better choices. You're nothing except an irresponsible wanton seatbelt derelict.

How can you expect people to sympathize with you when you knowingly got in your car and drove without a seatbelt? You forgot? Your seatbelt malfunctioned? What a bunch of crap. You broke the law; you chose to break the natural law of good driving that says 'Click it or ticket.' You and that Gary Busey (who doesn't want to wear a helmet) - all you individual rights whiners, 'i wanna feel unrestricted'- well, all you 'this is my life' freaks need to shut up and toe the line.

And what gets me is all these people who want to make 'safe driving' part of our curriculum. Drivers Ed - give me a break! There is no 'safe' driving. Encouraging 'safe' driving encourages irresponsibility and a reliance on untested methods - like so-called 'defensive driving.' Just wear your seatbelt.

I mean, it's consequences, man. You drive without a seatbelt and - wham! You know what's coming. Don't whine. Don't cavil. You deserve it. Natural consequences.

This world would be so much better if people just suffered a natural disincentive for their actions...

[insanity via bitch phd]

hey, breeders!

from a favorite gay:

The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're having those babies, ladies, and you're making those child-support payments, gentlemen. If you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.

What's it going to take to get a straight rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas wants to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for God's sake! Wake up and smell the freaking holy war, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!

Straights Rights Update

Blogging for Choice

My alter-ego, ChurchGal, Blogs for Choice here.

And it's the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Let's enjoy it while we can.

(And if you need reminding why reproductive choice is so very important, take your head out the sand and read up on what's been going on across the country for the past year or so. it's boggling.

Via Bush v. Choice)

alito in the house

now that the alito process is underway, i've been thinking about the worst case scenario: access to abortion being whittled down to nothing, forcing women who don't want to give birth to do so.

so i've been thinking that it's probably time for me to get an IUD. there are no hormones involved (which is a good thing for me since anything containing hormones will kill me) and it's long-term. my ex-roomie has one and she loves it, though it took her two years to find a doctor in illinois who didn't want to administer a psych exam before giving her one.

(can you believe that?? talk about bullshit patriarchy.)

worrying about how to keep my body baby-free is why choice is so important to me. if someone gets on the court who will severely limit access to abortion (or allow states to gut reproductive legislation significantly) my ability to make the best decision to not conceive or not give birth becomes harder and harder, accessible methods becoming more and more extreme.

a coworker of mine once told me i was paranoid, that nothing would ever happen to reproductive rights - at least roe wouldn't be overturned.

but we don't need roe to be overturned to worry; check out what's happening legislatively in south dakota, indiana, virginia.

[via feministing]

so silly: i thought this was my uterus...

A Man's Right to Choose - New York Times

while this didn't make me choke on my coffee, this last bit made me sort of gassy with exasperation (i'll bold the most gas-inducing parts):

"Why couldn't I make the same claim - that I am going to keep the baby regardless of whether she wants it or not?

Well, you might argue that all the man provides is his seed in a moment of pleasure. The real work consists of carrying a child for nine months, with the attendant morning sickness, leg cramps, biological risks and so on.

But how many times have we heard that fatherhood is not about a moment, it is about being there for the lifetime of a child? If we extend that logic, those 40 weeks of pregnancy - as intense as they may be - are merely a small fraction of a lifetime commitment to that child.

The bottom line is that if we want to make fathers relevant, they need rights, too. If a father is willing to legally commit to raising a child with no help from the mother he should be able to obtain an injunction against the abortion of the fetus he helped create.

Putting this into effect would be problematic, of course. But while such issues may be complicated, so is family life."

so, basically, let's just have men force women to give birth. yeah, i'm all for that.

while dalton's argument is fairly even in tone, it won't prevent me from calling him a complete tool.

his toolship: dalton, i'd really like to know how you (and other men) are going to justify forcing a woman to give birth against her will. i'd really like to see how your willingness to perform your fatherly duties outside of a woman's body justifies taking ownership of her body for 9 months against her will.

at the end of his 'waah waah' essay dalton tries to slide in an obligatory 'please ignore the fact i'm talking out my ass' by saying 'of course' his modest proposal would be hard to implement. but he doesn't say the reason why his idea won't work: hey, there's a woman attached to the other end of that fetus!

wouldn't everything be so much easier if we forgot there was a woman attached?

here's a tip from me to dalton: until we find a way for me to hatch a human embryo so a guy can sit on it like a penguin, you can kiss your dream good bye.

(tool! tool!)

bill bennet, shut up.

White House Criticizes Bennett for Remarks - New York Times

he says:
"I was pointing out that abortion should not be opposed for economic reasons, any more than racism or for that matter slavery or segregation should be supported or opposed for economic reasons," he said. "Immoral policies are wrong because they are wrong, not because of an economic calculation. One could just as easily have said you could abort all children and prevent all crime, to show the absurdity of the proposition."

[snip]

In an interview with Fox News, Mr. Bennett said critics had distorted his comments by omitting his statement that aborting all black babies would be "morally reprehensible."

"When that is included in the quote, it makes it perfectly clear what my position is," Mr. Bennett said, "They make it seem as if I am supporting such a monstrous idea, which I don't."

but, funny, though he 'easily' could have said so, he didn't say that one could abort all children and prevent all crime. he says black babies. (equating blackness and crime and just being icky all over the place); and saying that it's reprehensible (which was included in all the transcripts) doesn't take away from the fact that he SAID IT. no give backs. no do-overs. you SAID it, Bill.

(hey, let's play the bill bennet game! i know - one could also say that we could prevent all rape by aborting all male babies. of course to do so would be wrong, but it's a thought, right? or, we could stop all terrorism by aborting all muslims. or, we could stop homophobia by isolating the gay gene and aborting all gay babies. wow. this is a fun game once you get started. thanks, bill!)