Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Aurora Planned Parenthood Clinic is Open!!!
Good News from Planned Parenthood:
Yesterday, local officials confirmed that Planned Parenthood followed all proper procedures while developing our health center in Aurora, and found no grounds to deny us our permit.
As we write this, the doors of Planned Parenthood's newest health center are open, and the women of Aurora are coming through them. And the best part is, they'll be greeted by your ribbons, representing the warmth and welcome of thousands of people like you.
Your support, in person and in spirit, has been a heartwarming experience for those of us at Planned Parenthood. This is what it means to be part of this community. Just as the women of Aurora are Planned Parenthood, and the Aurora clinic is Planned Parenthood, so, too, are you Planned Parenthood.
We are Planned Parenthood. Standing together, we sent a message that we will fight for access to reproductive health care for women in Aurora and for women everywhere.
We've said this throughout these challenging weeks: "What happens in Aurora, happens in America." We expect fights like this for other health centers around the country in the months ahead. It won't be easy. But today, we're reminded that when you combine 90 years of history and courage with tens of thousands of people like you, we can win.
Monday, October 1, 2007
New Documentary About Abortion: "Lake of Fire"
Hothead plays it cool with "Lake of Fire"
Fri Sep 28, 2007 4:20am EDT
Click here for full article
By Gregg Kilday
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Back in 1998, when he battled New Line Cinema and star Edward Norton over the final cut of "American History X," director Tony Kaye earned a reputation as something of a hothead, a metaphoric bomb-thrower who wasn't afraid to challenge the Hollywood establishment.
Now that Kaye is about to release his latest film, a 2-1/2-hour documentary about abortion called "Lake of Fire," filmgoers might expect the director to offer up a fiery polemic. Instead, the film, which ThinkFilm is releasing October 5 in New York and a week later in Los Angeles, is something else entirely.
Eschewing narration, Kaye sublimates his own voice. Instead, "Fire," which covers the passionate battles waged in the U.S. during the past 15 years between pro-life and pro-choice forces, allows the various antagonists to speak for themselves.
Early in the film, Kaye presents an abortion procedure, complete with the remains of a fetus. Although the material is presented clinically, it's the type of imagery that pro-lifers use to support their contention that abortion is murder. But that scene is countered much later in the film by a sequence in which a woman named Stacey, an abuse survivor who is just beginning to get her life back on track, seeks out an abortion, secure in her conviction that she is not ready to bring a child into the world.
"The film opens as a pro-life film," Kaye concedes. That early footage of an actual abortion "sets up an interesting bar as to how you come back from that, but I think the film does. In the end, you are in a gray area, really. There is a woman who has an abortion, and it's obviously the right choice for her, but there's also a sense of loss as well. It's ironic."
The filmmaker didn't set out to become the arbiter of this debate -- or even to prove himself as a documentary filmmaker.
The London-born Kaye, who made a name for himself directing commercials, moved to Los Angeles in 1990 eager to embrace Hollywood. Searching for a subject that he could turn into a narrative film, "My naiveté," he says, "led me to this issue of abortion as a worthy endeavor." But Kaye couldn't find the right story to tell, so he stumbled into shooting a non-narrative film.
One key decision he made early on was to film in 35mm black and white. In part, it was an aesthetic decision. "I thought it would even everything out, and it is much easier to create a good image with black and white than with color," he says. But it also took on a thematic meaning, for as the director explains, the film isn't "entirely pro-choice or pro-life. There are lots of gray (areas) in there."
Abortion access for female inmates in Missouri still up for grabs
Abortion access for female inmates in Missouri
From Feministing
Click here for link to original post
In the ongoing legal battle over whether Missouri inmates have a right to access abortion services, an appeals court panel heard arguments this week as to whether the state is required to transport incarcerated women off-site to have an abortion.
As we've noted before Missouri usually has from 35 to 50 pregnant inmates in any given month and surveys of incarcerated women have shown that more than 83 percent have had a history of unplanned pregnancy.
RH Reality Check sums up nicely what’s at stake here:
I’d add that if the state of Missouri regularly transports incarcerated women as many as three hours off-site to take the State Board of Cosmetology exam, the legislature don'’t have grounds to complain about transporting them that far for abortion care. If they'’re worried about the cost of gas, the state legislators could always consider rolling back some of the TRAP laws that make it cost-prohibitive for abortion providers to open clinics in more counties. (Riiiight….)
From Feministing
Click here for link to original post
In the ongoing legal battle over whether Missouri inmates have a right to access abortion services, an appeals court panel heard arguments this week as to whether the state is required to transport incarcerated women off-site to have an abortion.
As we've noted before Missouri usually has from 35 to 50 pregnant inmates in any given month and surveys of incarcerated women have shown that more than 83 percent have had a history of unplanned pregnancy.
RH Reality Check sums up nicely what’s at stake here:
For more than twenty years, courts have ruled that incarcerated women retain their abortion rights, and yet for all those twenty years, jails and prisons have continued to violate those rights. Across the country, women have been told by sheriffs to get a judge’s permission, something that takes time, money, and the services of a lawyer. Women are routinely told that they must pay not only for the abortion, but for the costs of employees’ time and of transportation, down to turnpike tolls, even though people in prison have a constitutional right to medical care. In many cases, these requirements are unwritten and ad-hoc, reflecting the whim of local officials. From California to New York, from Louisiana to Pennsylvania, women have wound up carrying pregnancies to term because jail officials stood in their way until it was too late to have an abortion – or until they gave up.
Every woman has a lot to think about when faced with an unwanted pregnancy, but for women inside, the question takes on special urgency. Women may be concerned about the kind of prenatal care they will receive in prison and worried about what the future holds. Those facing long prison sentences may find the prospect of having a child unbearable. A woman serving as little as fifteen months can lose her parental rights if she has to place her child in foster care, even if she has never been accused of child abuse or neglect.
I’d add that if the state of Missouri regularly transports incarcerated women as many as three hours off-site to take the State Board of Cosmetology exam, the legislature don'’t have grounds to complain about transporting them that far for abortion care. If they'’re worried about the cost of gas, the state legislators could always consider rolling back some of the TRAP laws that make it cost-prohibitive for abortion providers to open clinics in more counties. (Riiiight….)
Abortion wait times in Ottawa hit six weeks
Advocates say that forcing women to wait as long as six weeks puts their health at risk, lengthening the time women may suffer morning sickness and other symptoms, as well as the psychological burden of waiting to terminate the pregnancy.
BY REBECCA DUBE
Click here for article
October 1, 2007 at 9:25 AM EDT
There's a place in North America where women have to wait for weeks to get an abortion because of lack of funding for nurses, doctors and operating rooms.
This place is not some conservative U.S. state or a remote corner of Canada's far north.
It's Ottawa.
Wait times for abortions in Ottawa stretched to six weeks this summer and are expected to do so again this winter.
Right now, a woman who wants an abortion in the city must wait about 3½ weeks, a delay that's unheard of elsewhere in North America, according to abortion-rights advocates and providers.
"They just wait and wait," says Joan Wright, who runs the Morgentaler abortion clinic in Ottawa. "This reminds me of the old days ... it's getting scarier."
The consequences of long wait times for abortion are problematic, advocates and doctors say, because the window of opportunity is so narrow: The cutoff for an elective abortion in many parts of Canada, including Ottawa, is 20 weeks.
Forcing women to wait weeks for an abortion, advocates say, puts their health at risk.
The longer a woman is pregnant, the more risky and complicated her abortion will be.
"I've had people wait six or eight weeks. By that time they were really far along. It's definitely more dangerous to the patient," says an Ottawa abortion provider who asked that she not be named to protect her privacy and safety.
Waiting weeks for an abortion also means women may suffer morning sickness and other symptoms, as well as the psychological burden of waiting to terminate the pregnancy.
"I was definitely shocked to find out what the wait times were - it made the process that much more traumatic," said Holly, a 20-year-old single mother who was told she'd have to wait five weeks for an abortion in Ottawa. She decided to drive to Montreal to terminate her pregnancy.
The long wait for abortion services in Ottawa is one symptom, advocates say, of how the pro-choice movement in Canada has lost steam since the decriminalization of abortion in 1988.
Although other nations often hail Canada's system as a model for safe, legal abortion, the reality is more complicated.
Nationally, only about one in six hospitals does abortions, according to a 2007 survey of all 791 public hospitals in Canada: That's 15.9 per cent, down from 17.8 per cent in 2003.
"While I wish that a woman was never in a position where she felt abortion was necessary, I do hope that the wait times shorten," Holly, who asked that her last name be withheld, wrote in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail.
"From my experience, women punish themselves emotionally after an abortion and forcing women to wait over a month is salt in the wound."
"We've probably sat on our laurels. Absolutely, access has decreased," says Patricia LaRue, executive director of Canadians for Choice. "It's only when you need it that you realize there are barriers."
Women in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and most other Canadian cities can usually access abortion services within a few days.
But no hospitals in Prince Edward Island perform abortions, and in New Brunswick women are required to get referrals from two doctors before having a publicly funded abortion, a practice that's the target of an ongoing lawsuit.
Perhaps the most desperate situation exists in the nation's capital, where wait times have been a problem for years, with no solution on the horizon.
Dawn Fowler, Canadian director of the Washington-based National Abortion Federation, says Ottawa's six-week wait time is the worst she's encountered.
The main problem in Ottawa is money and time - specifically, operating room time. Doctors are willing to perform abortions, but the OR schedule is packed and there aren't enough nurses and anesthetists to go around.
The push to reduce wait times overall has actually made things worse, experts say, because the province's priority areas, such as joint replacement and eye surgery, take operating room time away from everything else, including abortion.
"The Ontario government has begun extra funding [for those priorities] but there aren't any more nurses or anesthetists, so that means other things have to be decreased," says the Ottawa abortion provider.
For example, she says, the hospital has cancelled six abortion clinic days per year - which adds up to about 120 abortions - to give more operating room time to orthopedics.
"It's insane that no more funds are given by the provincial government for abortion services," Ms. LaRue says.
The provincial government pointed the finger at local health authorities, noting that overall funding has increased for both the Ottawa Hospital and the Morgentaler clinic in recent years.
The abortion wait time is a local problem, a health ministry spokesman said.
"We do not track wait times for abortions," said A.G. Klei, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Health.
Ottawa Hospital officials, meanwhile, say they try not to let the new priorities bump other surgeries, but they don't always succeed.
"It is very complex," says hospital spokeswoman Peggy Taillon. "We've tried to minimize the impact. That's not to say there's not going to be some displacement."
The hospital has recently started negotiating to transfer its abortion services to the Morgentaler clinic, which currently operates two days a week. But there's no guarantee that would solve the problem, as the clinic is already overtaxed.
In the meantime, women say the wait wears on them physically and mentally.
"That was the hardest part, my hormones were all over the place," one Ottawa woman wrote to Canadians for Choice, thanking them for their support after she waited two weeks for an abortion. "...I was bloated and so sleepy all the time."
Ms. Wright says she doesn't know how many women simply give up when confronted with the long wait time, but says women who lack the resources to travel may end up carrying their unwanted pregnancy to term.
Anti-abortion activists hope that's exactly what happens.
"A wait time is a good thing in the sense that it gives the woman in a crisis pregnancy more time to think about whether she really wants the abortion," says Stephanie Gray, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.
"The unborn are human, so to us whether it happens late or early, still it's killing a human being."
One rare thing activists on both side of the issue agree on: The Canadian public doesn't think much about abortion any more.
Anti-abortion activists decry the lack of attention to their issues. "Why aren't we looking for a way to support these women and help them in their pregnancies?" asks Joanne Byfield, president of LifeCanada.
Pro-choice supporters, meanwhile, say they're struggling to lessen the stigma of abortion and bring access issues to light. "I have not figured out how to say this so people grasp what is happening and how unfair it is," Ms. Wright says.
For now, abortion wait time is an issue that's confined to the shadows.
Women who need abortions are reluctant to speak out publicly, and few people are willing to stand up for a silent, stigmatized constituency.
"They know women will never complain," Ms. Wright says. "Not about this."
BY REBECCA DUBE
Click here for article
October 1, 2007 at 9:25 AM EDT
There's a place in North America where women have to wait for weeks to get an abortion because of lack of funding for nurses, doctors and operating rooms.
This place is not some conservative U.S. state or a remote corner of Canada's far north.
It's Ottawa.
Wait times for abortions in Ottawa stretched to six weeks this summer and are expected to do so again this winter.
Right now, a woman who wants an abortion in the city must wait about 3½ weeks, a delay that's unheard of elsewhere in North America, according to abortion-rights advocates and providers.
"They just wait and wait," says Joan Wright, who runs the Morgentaler abortion clinic in Ottawa. "This reminds me of the old days ... it's getting scarier."
The consequences of long wait times for abortion are problematic, advocates and doctors say, because the window of opportunity is so narrow: The cutoff for an elective abortion in many parts of Canada, including Ottawa, is 20 weeks.
Forcing women to wait weeks for an abortion, advocates say, puts their health at risk.
The longer a woman is pregnant, the more risky and complicated her abortion will be.
"I've had people wait six or eight weeks. By that time they were really far along. It's definitely more dangerous to the patient," says an Ottawa abortion provider who asked that she not be named to protect her privacy and safety.
Waiting weeks for an abortion also means women may suffer morning sickness and other symptoms, as well as the psychological burden of waiting to terminate the pregnancy.
"I was definitely shocked to find out what the wait times were - it made the process that much more traumatic," said Holly, a 20-year-old single mother who was told she'd have to wait five weeks for an abortion in Ottawa. She decided to drive to Montreal to terminate her pregnancy.
The long wait for abortion services in Ottawa is one symptom, advocates say, of how the pro-choice movement in Canada has lost steam since the decriminalization of abortion in 1988.
Although other nations often hail Canada's system as a model for safe, legal abortion, the reality is more complicated.
Nationally, only about one in six hospitals does abortions, according to a 2007 survey of all 791 public hospitals in Canada: That's 15.9 per cent, down from 17.8 per cent in 2003.
"While I wish that a woman was never in a position where she felt abortion was necessary, I do hope that the wait times shorten," Holly, who asked that her last name be withheld, wrote in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail.
"From my experience, women punish themselves emotionally after an abortion and forcing women to wait over a month is salt in the wound."
"We've probably sat on our laurels. Absolutely, access has decreased," says Patricia LaRue, executive director of Canadians for Choice. "It's only when you need it that you realize there are barriers."
Women in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and most other Canadian cities can usually access abortion services within a few days.
But no hospitals in Prince Edward Island perform abortions, and in New Brunswick women are required to get referrals from two doctors before having a publicly funded abortion, a practice that's the target of an ongoing lawsuit.
Perhaps the most desperate situation exists in the nation's capital, where wait times have been a problem for years, with no solution on the horizon.
Dawn Fowler, Canadian director of the Washington-based National Abortion Federation, says Ottawa's six-week wait time is the worst she's encountered.
The main problem in Ottawa is money and time - specifically, operating room time. Doctors are willing to perform abortions, but the OR schedule is packed and there aren't enough nurses and anesthetists to go around.
The push to reduce wait times overall has actually made things worse, experts say, because the province's priority areas, such as joint replacement and eye surgery, take operating room time away from everything else, including abortion.
"The Ontario government has begun extra funding [for those priorities] but there aren't any more nurses or anesthetists, so that means other things have to be decreased," says the Ottawa abortion provider.
For example, she says, the hospital has cancelled six abortion clinic days per year - which adds up to about 120 abortions - to give more operating room time to orthopedics.
"It's insane that no more funds are given by the provincial government for abortion services," Ms. LaRue says.
The provincial government pointed the finger at local health authorities, noting that overall funding has increased for both the Ottawa Hospital and the Morgentaler clinic in recent years.
The abortion wait time is a local problem, a health ministry spokesman said.
"We do not track wait times for abortions," said A.G. Klei, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Health.
Ottawa Hospital officials, meanwhile, say they try not to let the new priorities bump other surgeries, but they don't always succeed.
"It is very complex," says hospital spokeswoman Peggy Taillon. "We've tried to minimize the impact. That's not to say there's not going to be some displacement."
The hospital has recently started negotiating to transfer its abortion services to the Morgentaler clinic, which currently operates two days a week. But there's no guarantee that would solve the problem, as the clinic is already overtaxed.
In the meantime, women say the wait wears on them physically and mentally.
"That was the hardest part, my hormones were all over the place," one Ottawa woman wrote to Canadians for Choice, thanking them for their support after she waited two weeks for an abortion. "...I was bloated and so sleepy all the time."
Ms. Wright says she doesn't know how many women simply give up when confronted with the long wait time, but says women who lack the resources to travel may end up carrying their unwanted pregnancy to term.
Anti-abortion activists hope that's exactly what happens.
"A wait time is a good thing in the sense that it gives the woman in a crisis pregnancy more time to think about whether she really wants the abortion," says Stephanie Gray, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform.
"The unborn are human, so to us whether it happens late or early, still it's killing a human being."
One rare thing activists on both side of the issue agree on: The Canadian public doesn't think much about abortion any more.
Anti-abortion activists decry the lack of attention to their issues. "Why aren't we looking for a way to support these women and help them in their pregnancies?" asks Joanne Byfield, president of LifeCanada.
Pro-choice supporters, meanwhile, say they're struggling to lessen the stigma of abortion and bring access issues to light. "I have not figured out how to say this so people grasp what is happening and how unfair it is," Ms. Wright says.
For now, abortion wait time is an issue that's confined to the shadows.
Women who need abortions are reluctant to speak out publicly, and few people are willing to stand up for a silent, stigmatized constituency.
"They know women will never complain," Ms. Wright says. "Not about this."
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Donate to Equal Access Abortion Fund, Get Autographed Book!
The Equal Access Fund of East Tennessee believes that the right to choose abortion is meaningless without access to abortion services. Restrictions to access and funding are discriminatory because they especially burden poor women, young women and women of color.
EAF of Tennessee was created for the following purposes:
* to provide direct financial assistance to low income women & girls who wish to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, but can't raise the funds to obtain a safe and legal abortion, and to dispense these funds in an equitable manner
* to raise public awareness of the devastating impact of denying access to safe and legal abortion services
* to support ongoing efforts to restore public funding of abortion in conjunction with The National Network of Abortion Funds
* * * * * * * * *
Katha Pollitt, award winning progressive author and dedicated feminist/activist, has shown her dedication to the EAF cause once more.
She has not only sent in a donation, but also agreed to send an autographed copy of her new book, Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories, to anyone who donates $100 or more to EAF this week.
Read yesterday's case below.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To my dependable group of pro-choice activists,
I thank you for all your help in the past. Unfortunately, our work is never done and I have a case this morning that is very timely. Please contact me back by email if you can help the case featured below. - Heather of Equal Access Fund
From my mailbox this morning:
"I had to turn away a very nice, very desperate couple this morning who are going to Atlanta this Friday for a 2 day procedure because she is almost in her 20th week. We didn't charge her for the ultrasound because money is an issue; the money they are putting together is for their living expenses and will wind up with their being evicted I'm afraid. I've given her several numbers to call or emails to send and made several calls on her behalf and am hoping for the best. She is doing a lot of footwork on her own, and bless her heart is trying everything she can to keep her spirits up. I thought the two of them were going to pass out when they learned how far along she was and they tried so hard to be so brave and adult. (edited to remove personal info) ... and they are going to be staying with her mom, who has her own set of problems apparently. She's a good kid and seems to be trying to do her best not to repeat the mistakes of the generation before her if you get my drift. Anyhow, I just wanted you to know who was contacting you and why if you do hear from her. Thanks for all you do for our patients and I hope this finds both of you doing well. Rena, KCRH "
and from the patient:
"my name is xxxxx, and i went to the knoxville center for reproductive health today in the hopes to have an abortion there, but i am too far along and have to go to atlanta this friday and saturday to have the procedure done. i am 21 and not ready in any way shape or form to be a mother. i am a hostess at a restaurant and enrolled at pellissippi state and i am in dire desperate need of any monetary help i can get. my boyfriend and i are working as hard as we can and are doing everything in our power to get through this point in our lives. knoxville center gave me a list of options for some possible help. my phone number is xxxxxxx if you could contact me as soon as possible given i am pressed for time. i appreciate anything you all can do for me, and greatly respect what you are doing for women like me. god bless. "
I wrote the patient to see how much it will take to solve her current woes and here is the response:
"i have an appointment at summit medical center in atlanta on friday the 28th continuing through saturday being that it will be a two day procedure. the total cost will be $1325. i have gotten $100 from the south mountain women's alliance, and with that i have about $400-500 between cash and a discover card. a woman affiliated with the south mountain women's alliance is offering $50 to help pay for my hotel room friday night. in case you'd like to contact me, my number is xxxxxx. thank you for your help and concern, it is greatly appreciated ."
My question to my email list of activists is this:
Could you donate today?
Thanks,
Heather Robinson
Equal Access Fund
Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Rights Messages
September 27, 2007
Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Rights Messages
By ADAM LIPTAK
New York Times
Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.
But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake.
“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident,” Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said in a statement.
“It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy,” Mr. Nelson said. “That policy, developed before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages, was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.”
Mr. Nelson noted that text messaging is “harnessed by organizations and individuals communicating their diverse opinions about issues and topics” and said Verizon has “great respect for this free flow of ideas.”
The other leading wireless carriers had accepted the Naral program, which allows people to sign up for text messages from Naral by sending a message to a five-digit number known as a short code.
Text messaging is a growing political tool in the United States and a dominant one abroad, and such sign-up programs are used by many political candidates and advocacy groups to send updates to supporters.
But legal experts said private companies like Verizon probably have the legal right to decide which messages to carry. The laws that forbid common carriers from interfering with voice transmissions on ordinary phone lines do not apply to text messages.
In reversing course today, Verizon did not disclaim the power to block messages it deemed inappropriate.
The dispute over the Naral messages was a skirmish in the larger battle over the question of “net neutrality” — whether carriers or Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they provide to customers.
“This is right at the heart of the problem,” said Susan Crawford, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan law school, referring to the treatment of text messages. “The fact that wireless companies can choose to discriminate is very troubling.”
In initially turning down the program, Verizon, one of the nation’s two largest wireless carriers, had told Naral that it does not accept programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” Naral provided copies of its communications with Verizon to The New York Times.
Nancy Keenan, Naral’s president, said Verizon’s initial decision interfered with political speech and activism.
“No company should be allowed to censor the message we want to send to people who have asked us to send it to them,” Ms. Keenan said. “Regardless of people’s political views, Verizon customers should decide what action to take on their phones. Why does Verizon get to make that choice for them?”
On Wednesday, Mr. Nelson, the Verizon spokesman, said the initial decision had turned on the subject matter of the messages and not on Naral’s position on abortion. “Our internal policy is in fact neutral on the position,” Mr. Nelson said. “It is the topic itself” — abortion — “that has been on our list.”
Naral provided an example of a recent text message that it has sent to supporters: “End Bush’s global gag rule against birth control for world’s poorest women! Call Congress. (202) 224-3121. Thnx! Naral Text4Choice.”
Messages urging political action are generally thought to be at the heart of what the First Amendment protects. But the First Amendment limits government power, not that of private companies like Verizon.
In rejecting the Naral program, Verizon appeared to be acting against its economic interests. It would have received a small fee to set up the program and additional fees for messages sent and received.
Text messaging programs based on five- and six-digit short codes are a popular way to receive updates on news, sports, weather and entertainment. Several of the leading Democratic presidential candidates have used them, as have the Republican National Committee, Save Darfur and Amnesty International.
Most of the candidates and advocacy groups that use text message programs are liberal, which may reflect the demographics of the technology’s users and developers. A spokeswoman for the National Right to Life Committee, which is in some ways Naral’s anti-abortion counterpart, said, for instance, that it has not dabbled in text messaging.
Texting has proved to be an extraordinarily effective political tool. According to a study released this month by researchers at Princeton and the University of Michigan, young people who received text messages reminding them to vote in November 2006 were more likely to go to the polls. The cost per vote generated, the study said, was much smaller than other sorts of get-out-the-vote efforts.
Around the world, the phenomenon is even bigger.
“Even as dramatic as the adoption of text messaging for political communication has been in the United States, we’ve been quite slow compared to the rest of the world,” said James E. Katz, the director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “It’s important in political campaigns and political protests, and it has affected the outcomes of elections.”
Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia, said it was possible to find analogies to Verizon’s decision abroad. “Another entity that controls mass text messages is the Chinese government,” Professor Wu said.
Jed Alpert, the chief executive officer of Mobile Commons, which says it is the largest provider of mobile services to political and advocacy groups, including Naral, said he had never seen a decision like Verizon’s.
“This is something we haven’t encountered before, that is very surprising and that we’re concerned about,” Mr. Alpert said.
Professor Wu pointed to a historical analogy. In the 19th century, he said, Western Union, the telegraph company, engaged in discrimination, based on the political views of people who sought to send telegrams. “One of the eventual reactions was the common carrier rule,” Professor Wu said, which required telegraph and then phone companies to accept communications from all speakers on all topics.
Some scholars said such a rule was not needed for text messages because market competition was sufficient to ensure robust political debate.
“Instead of having the government get in the game of regulating who can carry what, I would get in the game of promoting as many options as possible,” said Christopher S. Yoo, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “You might find text-messaging companies competing on their openness policies.”
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Across the Deep South, religion, culture and politics collide to make ‘abortion’ a dirty word
Pro-choice demonstration at the Alabama State House in April 2006
In These Times
Features > September 26, 2007
An Unholy Alliance
By Carrie Kilman
Click here for article link
Every Wednesday and Friday morning, two or three volunteers wearing bright green shirts that read “Pro-Choice, Y’all” assemble in front of Reproductive Health Services in Montgomery, Ala., to escort patients from the parking lot to the front door, past a small sea of anti-abortion protesters.
The protesters carry handmade signs and pictures of fetuses sucking their thumbs. They play violins and blow loudly into horns. They thrust graphic pamphlets at the patients, form prayer circles on the sidewalk, and teach their children to plead with women to not murder their babies. The protesters are mostly women. They look like Sunday school teachers, housewives and hip grandmas. And, during the past few months, they have grown more vocal and more organized, emboldened by the recent closure of the only clinic in Mobile.
Every state in the Deep South—Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina—restricts low-income women’s access to abortion. Most ban abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy. None explicitly protect heath care facilities from harassment or violence. All have mandatory delay laws that unfairly burden women who have limited access to transportation and time off work, and Louisiana and South Carolina both passed unconstitutional laws requiring a husband’s consent for a married woman’s abortion. In the past 16 months, two abortion clinics in Alabama have closed, and new regulations are making it difficult for other clinics to stay open. Now, anti-abortion groups are strategizing ways to outlaw birth control and eliminate sex education.
Michelle Colon, president of the National Organization for Women’s (NOW) Mid-South region (Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee) calls it a “war on women”—the gravity of which citizens in more progressive parts of the country don’t appreciate. “The rest of the country kind of writes off the South—people feel the battle has been lost here,” Colon says.
Colon is part of a vocal, scrappy cadre of grassroots activists challenging the well-funded, entrenched anti-abortion movement that has long dominated state legislatures and local pulpits across the region. One Southern feminist put it this way: “Women here are sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
“It’s not legal, is it?”
Every morning when June Ayers arrives for work, she scans the parking lot for suspicious people and packages before getting out of her car. Ayers owns Reproductive Health Services, one of seven clinics that provide abortions in Alabama. She’s been followed home, trailed at the mall and harassed on her front porch.
Ayers was close friends with David Gunn, a doctor who performed abortions at clinics throughout Alabama and Florida. Anti-abortion protesters plastered Gunn’s face and home phone number to “Wanted” posters and distributed them at rallies. He answered their harassment by blasting Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down”, singing along, and wagging his finger in their direction. In March 1993, Gunn died when a protester shot him three times in the back outside of his clinic in Pensacola, Fla. The doctor on Ayers’ staff now wears a bulletproof vest.
Ayers recently invested in a sprinkler system to keep the protesters at bay. She has also installed concrete stepping-stones across the lawn so patients and escorts can avoid the protesters crowding the sidewalk. She bought orange vests for the escorts, so startled patients can distinguish between protesters and volunteers.
“At least once a month, I have women who call me and ask whether abortion is legal. That type of misinformation is rampant,” says Ayers. “We’re in the middle of the Bible Belt. It’s not just religion, it’s the fanatical religious aspect that keeps stirring people up who are opposed to us.”
It’s a place where the Christian Coalition holds sway over politicians, and many people vote the way they’re told in church. The legislative climate is “very hostile” toward abortion, says Felicia Brown Williams, who oversees Planned Parenthood’s advocacy agenda in Mississippi, one of two states with only one abortion clinic.
Mississippi has passed so many laws governing what abortion clinics can and cannot do that it is virtually impossible to open a second clinic without breaking state law. Mississippi requires permission from both parents for women under 18, except in cases of incest. The state’s conscience clause allows pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control. And earlier this year the Mississippi legislature passed a “trigger law,” immediately making abortion illegal should Roe v. Wade be overturned.
From ‘pro choice’ to ‘reproductive justice’
In the early-1990s, researcher Loretta Ross noticed the anti-abortion movement was borrowing tactics from the Ku Klux Klan—things like “Wanted” posters and targeted bombings. Ross now directs SisterSong, a national reproductive health collective in Atlanta. She travels the country, encouraging groups like Planned Parenthood to adopt a philosophy that SisterSong terms “reproductive justice.”
“Stopping at the right to terminate a pregnancy is woefully inadequate when it comes to the realities of people of color,” Ross says. “We have to fight for three different dimensions of the struggle: We join our pro-choice sisters to fight for the right not to have a child; but as women of color, we have been subjected to various strategies of population control, like forced sterilization, so we also have to fight for the right to have a child, especially in the context of people accusing us of having babies to get on welfare or to stay in the country. And we have to fight for the right to parent the children we already have, thanks to a criminal justice system that’s trying to capture them earlier and earlier.”
Moving from “pro-choice” to “reproductive justice” may prove crucial in the Deep South—home to a fast-growing Latino population—and towns like Montgomery, Ala., which is about 50 percent black.
“There is an unholy alliance between the legislators who oppose civil rights and the legislators who oppose reproductive rights,” Ross says. “As long as we look at reproductive rights only as the politics of gender, we will be missing the guiding script.”
Each year, Operation Save America (OSA) targets different clinics across the United States. Last summer, the group traveled to Jackson, Miss., for a weeklong “siege” to temporarily shut down the state’s only abortion clinic. OSA members, who compare themselves to Martin Luther King Jr., liken abortion to black genocide and lynching. While the anti-abortion movement has made inroads with some black churches, OSA’s references to lynching and Rev. King went too far.
Jackson’s abortion rights community mobilized to protect the last clinic in Mississippi. With volunteers coming from as far as Canada, they organized a door-knocking campaign, traversing Jackson’s communities of color and poor white communities, educating residents about OSA.
Abortion rights supporters from across the South flooded Jackson that week, in a series of counter-rallies and speak-outs called Reproductive Freedom Summer. OSA’s tactics—burning a Gay Pride flag and pages of the Koran, and picketing two Christian churches—created a local uproar. The clinic stayed open.
So goes the nation
Other states, like New York or Wisconsin, have achieved a kind of equilibrium, with a mass of vocal supporters on both sides. Outside of cities like Atlanta, this isn’t true of the Deep South.
“People are afraid to be seen at pro-choice events for fear of losing their jobs, or being rejected from church, or their kids being ostracized at school,” says Colon, of Mid-South NOW. In some places in the South, abortion is referred to as the “A word”; and many women, upon arriving for an abortion, tell clinic staff they think abortion is wrong.
“Most of the time, women think they actually deserve the ridicule and harassment from the street protesters,” says Ayers, from the Montgomery clinic. “It’s self-punishment: ‘I deserve to be accosted, because this is the choice I’m making.’”
Last year, Deirdra Harris Glover realized her silence implied tacit approval of Mississippi’s proposed abortion ban. So Glover, an admitted “professional geek,” launched ProChoiceMississippi.org to encourage closeted abortion rights supporters to come out. “Shame is an incredibly dehumanizing tactic used by the anti-abortion movement,” Glover wrote in an email. “They’ve managed to paint abortion as too awful to ever be dragged into the light of day.”
The Deep South’s reproductive rights community has few political allies. In Mississippi and Louisiana, Democrats run on anti-choice platforms. “We don’t have any judges on our side. We don’t have many in the media on our side,” says Colon. “The pro-choice allies in the state legislature are the older black men. The women in the legislature sell us out every time.”
And yet thinking that anti-choice zealotry is only an issue south of the Mason-Dixon line is a mistake. Laws restricting women’s access to healthcare have chipped away at abortion rights in almost every state. In fact, only seven states have laws protecting the right to an abortion.
“In some ways, the South is behind; but in some ways, the South is dictating the rest of the country,” says Ross, of SisterSong. “There wouldn’t be a resurgent right-wing if the rest of the country wasn’t becoming Dixie-fied.”
Colon adds: “If we lose the South, the middle of the country won’t be long.”
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Poland loses ruling in abortion case
Last Updated: 25/09/2007 12:17
Poland loses ruling in abortion case
article
The European Court of Human Rights today confirmed Poland will have to pay compensation to a woman who nearly went blind after being denied an abortion under strict Polish laws.
Poland had appealed an order by the Strasbourg-based court in March to pay the woman €39,000. Judges rejected that appeal yesterday, a court spokesman said this afternoon.
The verdict in March enraged the conservative government of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The ruling coalition has been pushing for a total ban on abortion in the predominantly Roman Catholic country, which already has one of the strictest abortion laws in the European Union.
Polish law allows a pregnancy to be terminated only when it threatens the life or health of the mother, when the baby is likely to be permanently handicapped or when it originates from rape.
In March, the European based court ruled that Alicja Tysiac, whose eyesight worsened after the baby girl was born and who is now registered as disabled, had been denied her human rights under Poland's anti-abortion laws.
Ms Tysiac, who is bringing up three children alone, suffers from an eye disease and cannot see objects more than 1.50 metres away. She receives a monthly disability pension equivalent to €140.
Ms Tysiac became pregnant in 2000. Three doctors told her she could go blind if she gave birth to her third child, but they refused to write her a certificate that would authorise an abortion.
Poland loses ruling in abortion case
article
The European Court of Human Rights today confirmed Poland will have to pay compensation to a woman who nearly went blind after being denied an abortion under strict Polish laws.
Poland had appealed an order by the Strasbourg-based court in March to pay the woman €39,000. Judges rejected that appeal yesterday, a court spokesman said this afternoon.
The verdict in March enraged the conservative government of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The ruling coalition has been pushing for a total ban on abortion in the predominantly Roman Catholic country, which already has one of the strictest abortion laws in the European Union.
Polish law allows a pregnancy to be terminated only when it threatens the life or health of the mother, when the baby is likely to be permanently handicapped or when it originates from rape.
In March, the European based court ruled that Alicja Tysiac, whose eyesight worsened after the baby girl was born and who is now registered as disabled, had been denied her human rights under Poland's anti-abortion laws.
Ms Tysiac, who is bringing up three children alone, suffers from an eye disease and cannot see objects more than 1.50 metres away. She receives a monthly disability pension equivalent to €140.
Ms Tysiac became pregnant in 2000. Three doctors told her she could go blind if she gave birth to her third child, but they refused to write her a certificate that would authorise an abortion.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Why women face agonizing waits for abortions in Ottawa
By Jenn Gearey, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Monday, September 24, 2007
click here for article
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PHOTO: Morgentaler Clinic counsellor Samantha Wood says she refers four or five women a day to Montreal or Toronto to get abortions, where the wait is much shorter.
Julie Oliver, the Ottawa Citizen
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In less than five minutes, Jennifer will be called in from the Morgentaler Clinic's waiting room to have an abortion. It can't happen soon enough for her: She's been waiting six weeks, watching her belly grow and feeling her hormones go berserk.
Twenty-year-old Jennifer is 13 weeks pregnant. She's been on a waiting list to have an abortion since the end of July and by now it's Sept. 11.
"The wait has been extremely straining on me and those around me," says Jennifer, moments away from the procedure. "I couldn't believe I had to wait so long. ... I became so anxious and impatient about my situation."
Jennifer, who did not wish to have her real name used in this story, is one of thousands of Ottawa women every year who believed that if they needed an abortion they could get one on demand. It's a wake-up call when they find out otherwise.
Canadians for Choice, an Ottawa-based non-profit organization that tracks the accessibility of abortion, says women in Ottawa face the longest wait times in the country for the procedure.
The average wait for abortion in Canada is an estimated two weeks, the group says. And in Toronto, a woman can usually have the procedure within about eight days. The average wait time in Ottawa is generally at least four weeks.
Patricia Larue, executive director of Canadians for Choice, says that in contrast to Ottawa, she can count at least 11 places in Toronto and 11 in Montreal where abortion is accessible -- and some clinics on a full-time basis. In Ottawa, abortion is only offered at the Bank Street Morgentaler Clinic and The Ottawa Hospital -- two days and one day a week, respectively.
Shayna Hodson, spokeswoman for the Morgentaler Clinic in Toronto, says Ottawa has a different history than Toronto on this issue.
"Looking at the history of Ottawa, it was more difficult to set up abortion facilities there than in Toronto -- there were more petitions," Ms. Hodson says. "But it's not because of a lack of will from doctors or lack of demand. The thing is, the subject is still very much taboo, so you're not going to have droves of women rallying about this because who wants to be the woman publicly saying 'I want an abortion'?"
Ms. Larue says the six-week wait time that Ottawa women encountered this summer was too long.
"By the time a woman knows she's pregnant, makes a decision on what she wants to do, and finds out where to go to get an abortion, sometimes it's too late," she says, explaining that some women have to carry their unwanted pregnancies to term as a result.
Ms. Larue says at The Ottawa Hospital, the time limit to have an abortion is 18 weeks gestation; 17 at the Morgentaler Clinic. And, she says, most doctors in Canada won't perform abortions beyond 22 weeks.
"Abortion law in Canada is unique," says Ms. Larue. "Here, abortion is a decision that's made between a woman and her doctor. There are no restrictions whatsoever. It's up to the clinic or hospital to say at what point they won't give them anymore, and at what point the doctor feels it's unethical for them."
Since some women don't have the luxury of time for a six-week waiting list, Samantha Wood, telephone counsellor at the Morgentaler Clinic, says she refers women to Montreal or Toronto, where the wait is considerably shorter.
"I would say I refer four or five patients a day to different clinics, but there's no way of knowing whether they actually follow up with them," says Ms. Wood. "To be quite frank, I think it's somewhat inhumane to make women wait -- the physical and emotional effects are unnecessary."
Ms. Wood, 22, had the procedure herself in 2005 in her second year of university. She was fortunate that she didn't have to wait as long as many others.
"I always knew what my choice would be if I became pregnant, but I was pretty naive of how the system worked before I got into the situation myself," she says. "I was extremely lucky. I only waited 20 days back then. A couple of weeks ago, the wait was the worst I've ever seen. People get pretty upset."
Summer months and just after Christmas are the worst times to need an abortion in Ottawa.
"The reason wait times go up in the summer is because the hospital's centre closes down for a month in August and they don't do any (abortions) at all during that time -- but the need is always constant," says Ms. Larue. "After Christmas isn't as bad because they only close for two weeks."
One Ottawa abortion doctor, who asked to remain anonymous to prevent harassment and threats, explained some of the dynamics of having an abortion at The Ottawa Hospital's Women's Health Centre. Women who opt to go there, she said, are sent to the hospital's birthing ward for a pre-abortion ultrasound, where they sit with expectant mothers and posters that read "Congratulations on Your Baby."
The Ottawa doctor says there are better alternatives, but she feels proper access to abortion is being ignored.
"Abortion just doesn't get any attention anymore; people think it's solved and not an issue," she says.
She says that with only two abortion clinics operating part-time in Ottawa, the city is still expected to perform abortions for women from the Valley, Belleville, and even Kingston to some extent, since there are no doctors there who are able to perform abortions over 14 weeks -- Ottawa takes in women from Nunavut for the same reason.
"After 12 to 14 weeks, the procedure changes," says Ms. Larue. "So a GP wouldn't be able to do it anymore, they'd need to have surgical training."
Overall, abortion actually appears to be on the decline in Canada, although only slightly. In 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 103,768 abortions were performed in Canada, down almost 1,500 from 2002 and down 2,500 from 2001.
But in Ottawa, abortion doctors and facilitators say they are frustrated that they can't provide the abortion services they say women need.
Since The Ottawa Hospital independently decides how many abortions its doctors will perform every year, the issue rests with its board. A spokeswoman for the hospital said board members would not comment on that decision-making process.
In the case of the Morgentaler Clinic, it's up to the Ontario government to decide how many abortions it can perform -- based on the funds it's willing to give the clinic.
"Every year I apply for more money and every year I get a letter saying I'll get exactly the same amount as I did the year before," says Joan Wright, manager of Ottawa's Morgentaler Clinic, who said she wishes the clinic could operate on more than a part-time basis.
A.G. Klei, spokesman for the Ontario Ministry for Health and Long-Term Care, says the ministry provided enough money for the clinic to perform 2,350 abortions this year.
"Last year, the Morgentaler Clinic requested increased funding for its services that was not approved at the time, but they can continue to request in the future," says Mr. Klei.
But while additional funding for an existing abortion clinic has been turned down for the Morgentaler Clinic, the ministry says there's another reason behind why there are so few clinics in the Ottawa area.
"There have been no other applications to the ministry from interested groups wanting to obtain an abortion clinic licence in Ottawa," says Mr. Klei.
Ms. Hodson says she can't understand why the ministry would consider funding new abortion clinics, but not increase funds for an existing one to deal with the shortage of abortion services in the city.
"Why not expand the existing clinic, which has a great reputation, an excellent safety record, already established infrastructure and overhead, rather than spend taxpayers' money on a new one? It's all circular talk when you break it down."
Ms. Wright is also skeptical.
"If you ask the government for more money for abortion you get kicked," she says. "Health care is dying and (Dalton) McGuinty isn't going to 'up' the money for abortion -- that would have people screaming. And the government certainly doesn't want that during an election ... so it falls between the cracks."
When asked about lengthy abortion wait times in Ottawa, Ben Chin, spokesman for the Ontario Liberal Party, says the party's focus is on hospital lineups: for cardiac procedures, cancer, MRI/CTs, hip and knee surgery, and cataract procedures. He also said the party would work toward wait-time progress for emergency room visits, children's surgery and general surgery. There is no mention of abortion in his response.
When asked the same question, Mike Van Soelen, spokesman for Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory, also responds without mentioning abortion.
"It's shocking that Ottawa is lagging behind provincial wait time averages in many areas--everything from hip replacement to cataract surgery," says Mr. Van Soelen. "Ottawa is the province's second largest city and the premier's home town. Health care has to do better."
As it is, there is no shorter wait time in sight for abortion in Ottawa. And there appear to be several other factors that contribute to that.
"A lot of doctors who fought along with Dr. Morgentaler are now retired and there simply aren't as many people doing abortions now," says Ms. Larue. "These days it's hard for medical students to get access to learn how to do the procedure. Often, they have to fight for it."
To reduce wait times for abortion procedures and accommodate more women, Ms. Wright suggests that in the future an alternative may be drug-induced abortions, which can be done in a general practitioner's office. Surgical abortion is the dominant method of abortion in Ottawa and Ms. Larue says that only one doctor in the city performs drug-induced abortions.
Abortion doctors in Ottawa, meanwhile, aren't optimistic for the future.
With a deteriorating health care system, they recognize that abortion surgery is not on a high-priority list, which leaves women like Jennifer no choice but to wait through an unwanted pregnancy for sometimes months, trying to ignore the physical and emotional signs that just won't go away.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
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