My take on the Yale abortion "art" debacle

Just my two cents here, but after pondering this more (as someone who is also making art on this topic), I think what the artist in the Yale art scandal was trying to articulate with her performance piece was the cultural reaction to abjection with relation to the fetus.

Here is a definition of "abjection" from wikipedia:

The term "Abjection" literally means "the state of being cast off." The concept of abject exists in between the concept of an object and the concept of the subject, something alive yet not. In contemporary critical theory, it is often used to describe the state of often-marginalized groups, such as people of color, prostitutes, homosexuals, convicts, poor people and handicapped persons. This term originated in the works of Julia Kristeva. Often, the term space of abjection is also used, referring to a space that abjected things or beings inhabit.

Following Kristeva's formulation of abjection in Powers of Horror - An Essay on Abjection, abjection can be seen as letting go of something we would still like to keep. In the case of blood, semen, hair and excrement/urine, we recognize these as once being a part of ourselves, thus these forms of the abject are taken out of our system while bits of them remain in our selves. When one encounters blood, excrement, etc. outside of the body, one is forced to confront what was once a part of oneself, but no longer is. Dismemberment compels the same kind of heightened reaction when one confronts the horror of detachment. A dismembered finger or limb is identified as belonging to one's own body and is 'missed' while at the same time repulsive to the viewer for no longer being a part of the whole. Because humans frequently shed skin and blood etc. there is a higher tolerance to it and we are not as horrified as we would be in the case of dismemberment, yet most are not willing to engage with excrement or blood due to its detached nature. In a way, we exist in abjection: the process of creating our self (identity) is never-ending. The act of "selfing" ("identifying") ourselves is the only common feature of all people.

According to Kristeva, since the abject is situated outside the symbolic order, being forced to face it is an inherently traumatic experience. For example, upon being faced with a corpse, a person would be most likely repulsed because he or she is forced to face an object which is violently cast out of the cultural world, having once been a subject. We encounter other beings daily, and more often than not they are alive. To confront a corpse of one that we recognize as human, something that should be alive but isn't, is to confront the reality that we are capable of existing in the same state, our own mortality. This repulsion from death, excrement and rot constitutes the subject as a living being in the symbolic order.

This act is done in the light of the parts of ourselves that we exclude: un-namely – the mother. We must abject the maternal, the object which has created us, in order to construct an identity. This is done on the micro level of the speaking being, through her subjective dynamics, as well as on the macro level of society, through "language as a common and universal law." We use rituals, specifically those of defilement, in order to maintain clear boundaries between nature and society, the semiotic and the symbolic. This line of thought begins with Mary Douglas' important book, Purity and Danger, as well as in Kristeva's own Black Sun.

The concept of abject is often coupled (and sometimes confused with) the idea of the uncanny, the concept of something being "un-home-like", or foreign, yet familiar. The abject can be uncanny in the sense that we can recognize aspects in it, despite its being "foreign". An example, continuing on the one used above, is that of a corpse, namely the corpse of a loved one. We will recognize that person as being close to us, but the fact that the person is dead, and "no longer" the familiar loved one, is what creates a sort of cognitive dissonance, leading to abjection of the corpse.

**

IMO, the anti-choice forces have employed abjection vis a vis the proliferation dismembered fetus pictures, and very effectively, to dissuade people from supporting abortion rights. However, the contrast to this is the abjection that is the female corpse - as the result of self-induced or illegal abortion. It is this abjection that I am trying to use in The Coat Hanger Project to remind people why safe, legal abortion is a fundamental human right for women. And this is where I wish the Yale artist had tried to take her work, to complete her thought, to make a statement - instead of just causing an empty rucus with her "hoax."

- Angie Young, Director, The Coat Hanger Project

Yale Performance Art: Where Are the Grown-Ups?

By Carole Joffe, Created Apr 18 2008 - 8:58am

Yesterday the Yale Daily News published a story 1 about the senior project of an art major, Aliza Shvarts, which consists, as the article put it, of "a documentation of a nine month process during which she inseminated herself as often as possible while periodically taking abortifacient 2 drugs to induce miscarriages." In short, Ms. Shvarts claimed to use donated sperm to achieve repeated pregnancies, and used then an unspecified drug for repeated abortions. Predictably, this story has spread like wildfire both on the Internet as well as the mainstream press.

Later on Thursday, Yale University issued a statement 3 announcing that Shvarts' project did not involve actual pregnancy or induced miscarriage. But even before their statement, I was skeptical. Most puzzling to me was her claim to have used "abortifacient drugs that were legal and herbal." If she had really terminated her own pregnancies repeatedly, she could have been subject to legal prosecution -- as occurred recently to a number of poor, mainly immigrant women who have tried to terminate their unwanted pregnancies by themselves, in situations vastly more grave than Schvarts' "senior project."

Even though Schvarts did not actually become pregnant and self-abort, this is a disturbing and irresponsible project. Shvarts told the Yale Daily News that her project was not designed for "shock value" and it was not her intention to "scandalize anyone." She also told the paper that she "believes strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity."

It is very hard to take such statements seriously. If she truly believed that claiming to get herself pregnant "repeatedly," only to then terminate those pregnancies, would not shock and scandalize, then she clearly has not a clue about reproductive politics, and should not be sticking her nose, er, her uterus, into a highly charged issue she knows nothing about. Art should be a medium for politics, but the responsibility of the artist is to know something about the politics with which she is engaging.

What useful "conversation" has Shvarts provoked with this project -- other than the fact that not all ideas for performance art are good ones? Does anyone -- on either side of the abortion debate -- gain any new insight from her work? All that seems to be accomplished with this project is a highly visible trivialization of the issue of abortion and a phenomenal insensitivity to women who suffer repeat miscarriages.

As someone who has been a college professor for over thirty years, I know it is not uncommon for eager students to have fanciful ideas projects, and some of these, for various reasons, simply should not take place. It is the job of faculty mentors to give appropriate guidance and to point out that not everything that is "provocative" is necessarily worth doing. The Yale art department, and her advisor in particular, has failed Aliza Shvarts big-time. And in ways that clearly Ms. Shvarts does not understand, her "artistic" contribution to politics fails the rest of us.

Yale Art Student Claims She Used Blood Samples, Video of Self-Induced Abortions for Senior Project

Thursday, April 17, 2008
By Catherine Donaldson-Evans
Article

A Yale student who claims she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" and then took drugs to induce miscarriages for her senior art project says she will showcase the stomach-turning display next week — complete with her own blood samples and videos from the terminated possible pregnancies.

The story of art major Aliza Shvarts' upcoming exhibit, which the Yale Daily News broke Thursday, has sparked widespread disgust and outrage.

"It’s clearly depraved. I think the poor woman has got some major mental problems," said National Right to Life Committee President Wanda Franz. "She’s a serial killer. This is just a horrible thought."

Critics on campus have said the display sounds like a shock-and-awe look at the highly sensitive issue of abortion and called it a sick stunt to get attention.

But Shvarts said the goal of the project is to encourage debate and discussion about the connection between art and the human body.

"I hope it inspires some sort of discourse," Shvarts, whose age was withheld, told Yale's newspaper. "Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it, but it's not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone."

Shvarts' campus phone has been disconnected, and she did not respond to e-mailed requests for an interview. Yale University and the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America also did not return calls seeking comment.

Shvarts told the school paper that her sperm donors, whom she declined to identify, were not paid for their participation but added that she did require them to be screened for STDs.

The drugs she took to induce contractions and miscarriages were legal and herbal in nature, according to Shvarts — who didn't specify what they were. The art major insisted she wasn't concerned about the effects of her research on her own body.

But ob-gyn Dr. Manuel Alvarez, FOXNews.com's health managing editor, said the young woman should have been worried because what she was doing was extremely unsafe.

"It’s quite dangerous," Alvarez said. "She was playing Russian roulette with her life, if she indeed did this to these unborn children for the sake of art. I don’t even have the words to express the disbelief that I have."

Alvarez said herbal remedies to trigger uterine contractions have long been used in countries where abortions are illegal — including certain raspberry teas and strong cinnamon teas — but they are far from consistently effective, and they tend to be risky.

"They interfere with pregnancy and are either toxic to the fetus or cause contractions," he explained. "The reason they are effective is that they create side effects, but none of them are 100 percent prescriptive to be abortive."

Shvarts wouldn't say how many times she was artificially inseminated and actually got pregnant for the project — which she described to the Yale paper as a huge cube hanging from the ceiling and swathed in plastic sheeting smeared with her blood from the reported miscarriages. The existence and number of pregnancies Shvarts may have had weren't independently confirmed.

Videos taken of what the college student says were self-induced abortions in her bathtub will be projected both on the cube's sides and on the gallery walls.

The exhibit will be on public display from April 22 to May 1 at Yale's Holcombe T. Green Jr. Hall. Shvarts will be honored at a reception April 25.

Franz likened Shvarts' process of artificial insemination and induced miscarriages to the human experimentation that took place during the Holocaust. She said the Yale senior's work highlights a stark truth about American society's approach to abortion.

"She really has hit on a reality that what she has done is legal," Franz said. "Anything she chooses to do here can’t be stopped in terms of legality. And there are people fighting for her right to do this."

Alvarez believes such an endeavor in the name of art is offensive, harmful and insensitive, especially to women who face difficult choices about pregnancy or who aren't able to conceive.

"Anybody who trivializes a woman’s choice to terminate a pregnancy is really not contributing anything positive to these matters," he said. "I don’t see anything artistic about this. ... It’s completely unethical and immoral. What have we accomplished? Absolutely nothing."

Anti-Choice and the Woo Factor

By Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check
Posted on March 27, 2008, Printed on March 28, 2008
Article on RH Reality Check

If you've never really delved into it, I highly recommend that you take some time to discover the skeptical community. People who consider themselves bona fide skeptics are generally delightful people, if a little nerdy, and if you are not someone who gets highly attached to what skeptics like to call "woo" -- a catchall term for beliefs that have little to no grounding in reality, from conspiracy theories to belief in the paranormal. Skeptics are big fans of science (most of the contributers to one of my favorite podcasts, "The Skeptic's Guide To The Universe," are scientists of some sort), and a handful of honest magicians like James Randi and Penn and Teller also throw in, angry at less ethical magicians who present their tricks as something more than entertaining diversions. They have books, podcasts, websites, and even TV shows, like "Mythbusters" and "Bullsh*t."

Skeptics enjoy debunking people's delusions. They poke holes in the claims made by "alternative medicines" like homeopathy, acupuncture, or chiropractic therapy. They like to expose psychics as frauds. They show up ghost hunters, and question people who believe they were abducted by aliens. What they don't take on, and has always puzzled me, are the woo-based claims made by the anti-choice movement.

I can't think of a better example of organized woo than anti-choicers. UFO aficionados and conspiracy theorists have the numbers, but rarely do they exhibit the same kind political pull that the anti-choice community has. But other than their extraordinary political effectiveness, the anti-choice movement resembles any other group of woo believers. They organize around some really wild claims that filter out to the rest of society in a milder form that makes them seem more sane. For instance, UFO believers and homeopathy followers internally believe, respectively, that people live entire alternate lives on board alien ships and that almost any disease can be cured by drinking lots of water with microscopic traces of herbs in it. What filters out to the rest of us is just the erroneous belief that we have aliens that visit occasionally and taking herbs can be a substitute for real medicine. Similarly, anti-choicers internally believe that sex education and birth control is unilaterally an offense against god and nature, but the outside world that picks up on this mostly walks away with the message that abortion is bad.

Seriously, it should only take one look at the folks marching around the Hollywood premiere of "Horton Hears A Who" with red stickers that say "Life" over their faces, half willing themselves to believe that this movie is secretly all about them and their issues. It's a cult, and a strange one at that.

But what should really put the anti-choice community on the radar of the skeptical community is their hostility to science and their affection for anti-scientific claims. Anti-choicers make outlandish claims about the brain activity and feelings of embryos and fetuses, claims that could potentially affect a woman who obtained an abortion and believed lies about what happened later. They make deeply unscientific claims about how hormonal contraception causes abortion in order to give cover to a larger anti-contraception agenda. They make claims about how condoms don't work in an effort to dissuade people from using this potentially life-saving prevention device. And let's not get into the unscientific, woo-esque claims made about how Terri Schiavo could have a miraculous recovery.

Penn and Teller did in fact take on the anti-choice community's claims in an episode of "Bullsh*t," when they did an episode on abstinence-only education. So there's some indication on the horizon that the skeptical community senses all the woo coming from the anti-choice community and leaking into the regular political discourse, sometimes into alarming bills like the Human Life Amendment that attempts to enshrine the woo about "life" beginning at conception into law. But even though there's ample unscientific material to work with in the anti-choice literature, there's not a whole lot of correction coming from the usual skeptical sources. Why not?

Probably because politics ruins a good party. Skeptics come from all over the political spectrum, so digging into this angle might cause strife in the community. Many skeptics, while still being pro-science, might be amenable to the idea that women should be held as second class citizens by laws against reproductive justice, and starting internal battles on this issue might be seen as too much trouble. There's also the fear that getting political leads to ideological claims, which color the ability to practice skeptical inquiry properly. Penn and Teller often get called out on the carpet because their libertarian ideology often leads them to abandon their commitment to scientific evidence, most notably in their episode about second hand smoke, an episode that ignored evidence against their claims that it is basically harmless.

Unfortunately, the struggle between science-based thinking and woo-based thinking is getting increasingly politicized in this country. Even the most reluctantly political science supporters have had to face up to the political power of woo in the aftermath of increasingly vehement attempts from creationists trying to replace genuine science in the biology classroom with myths that sit better with their more magical understanding of the world. Maybe the scope of skepticism could widen to include skepticism about outrageous claims made by anti-choicers? God knows a lot of us fighting the woo-based anti-choice activists come from a background of social justice, not science, and we could use all the help we can get.

Amanda Marcotte co-writes the popular blog Pandagon.

Bush Administration Moves to Block ACOG Guidelines that Require Anti-Choice Docs to Refer Patients Seeking Abortion

Click here for original article

In November, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued new ethics guidelines. Members who have a moral objection to performing abortions are now required to refer their patients to another provider:

Physicians and other health care providers have the duty to refer patients in a timely manner to other providers if they do not feel they can in conscience provide the standard reproductive services that patients request. In resource-poor areas, access to safe and legal reproductive services should be maintained.

The Bush administration has now stepped in to block these guidelines. In a little-noticed letter on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt wrote a letter to the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG), stating that providers with moral objections to abortion should have no obligation to refer patients:

I am writing to express my strong concern over recent actions that undermine the conscience and other individual rights of health care providers. […]

It appears that the interaction of the ABOG Bulletin with the ACOG ethics report would force physicians to violate their conscience by referring patients for abortions or taking other objectionable actions, or risk losing their board certification.

Leavitt is overly concerned with these physicians who may be forced to “violate their conscience,” but apparently not at all concerned for women who may be turned away from the only accessible health care service. ACOG never stated that board certification would be stripped from doctors who ignore these guidelines.

As OB/GYN Wendy Chavkin of Columbia University told NPR this morning, Leavitt’s policy may also allow physicians to deny a woman who has been raped emergency contraception. Listen here:

Yesterday, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice put out a statement supporting ACOG’s “principled and sensible policy,” which would “leave untouched a physician’s right to refuse to provide abortions — a right that has been spelled out in law since 1973 — but would ensure that the patient received the services she needed and wanted.”

Abortion Ban for American Indian Women Passes

Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) (WDCpix) -->

Abortion Ban For American Indians Only:
Indian Health Care Bill Places Added Restriction on Native American Women
By Mike Lillis 03/05/2008
Click here for article

Following scant debate, the Senate last week approved an amendment to an Indian health care bill that would permanently prohibit the use of federal dollars to fund abortions for Native Americans except in rare cases. The move has prompted an outcry from women’s health advocates—who point out that a similar ban has existed on a temporary basis for years—and from tribal groups, who are asking why Native American women should be subject to restrictions not applicable to other ethnic groups. Some charge that the Senate proposal is overtly racist.

The issue is a sensitive one in American Indian communities, where women are statistically more likely to be victims of rape or sexual assault than other American women—but also where victims very rarely use the exceptions to the current federally funded abortion ban in the wake of those crimes. In the face of that discrepancy, advocates say, Congress should encourage victims to take advantage of the available services, not impose tighter restrictions.

The debate pits anti-abortion lawmakers on both sides of the aisle against health-care advocates who fear the latest move could set the stage for broader abortion prohibitions under federal programs outside the realm of Indian health services. In addition, there is the intrigue of scandal, for the sponsor of the controversial amendment, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), made headlines last year for his earlier entanglement in a prostitution ring. Several abortion-rights sources suggested that Vitter—who built his political career on family-values issues—is trying to bolster his conservative credentials in the wake of that embarrassment.

The controversy swirls around a federal law—known as the Hyde amendment—that prohibits abortion coverage under Medicaid, Medicare and Indian Health Service programs. While the Hyde law must be renewed by Congress each year, the Vitter amendment—which the Senate approved on Feb. 26—would apply Hyde’s restrictions permanently to IHS beneficiaries. For that reason, tribal health advocates charge that the Vitter language treads on the sovereignty of Indian communities and places unique constraints on native women.

"It’s a very racist amendment," said Charon Asetoyer, executive director of the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center, "[because] it puts another layer of restrictions on the only race of people whose health care is governed primarily by the federal government. All women are subject to the Hyde amendment, so why would they put another set of conditions on us?"

Vitter’s office did not return several calls and e-mails requesting comment.

A number of women’s health groups have criticized the Vitter amendment as well, claiming it will have no practical effect on women’s health services.

"Apart from being bad public health policy," Planned Parenthood said in a statement, "this language is duplicative of current law and serves only to politicize important legislation regarding comprehensive health care for Native Americans."

Though the Hyde amendment—named for its sponsor, the late Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde (R )—first took effect in 1977, Congress must reapply it annually through the appropriations process. That, according to Vitter, puts the Hyde language "in a tenuous and precarious posture. It puts it up for debate and possible change of policy every year, every time we debate a new Health and Human Services appropriations bill. Therefore, it doesn’t make the policy very solid, very secure, or very clear."

Vitter’s amendment, attached last week to the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, would eliminate that uncertainty by codifying the Hyde amendment as a matter of authorization, not appropriation. "I suggest that would be a positive statement for life, for positive values for the future," he said on the Senate floor Jan. 22—the same day that thousands of anti-abortion marchers descended on Washington. A month later, the Senate approved Vitter’s amendment by a vote of 52 to 42.

But critics say the creation of a second law governing IHS-funded abortion services might confuse the issue if inconsistencies are found between the two mandates. Indeed, certain elements of Vitter’s amendment stray from the Hyde language. For example, while Hyde allows federally funded abortions for victims of incest at any age, Vitter specifies that the incest exception pertains only to minors.

Marlene Fried, a founding board member of the National Network of Abortion Funds, said the practical implications of that difference would be minimal. Still, she added, the change is significant as "another way of narrowing the [Hyde] exceptions."

The issue is especially charged because Native American women are more than three times as likely to suffer rape and sexual abuse as other women in the United States. Yet despite that statistic, only 25 abortions were performed at all IHS facilities between 1981 and 2001, according to figures gathered from the IHS by the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center. (An IHS spokeswoman declined to release more recent IHS-funded abortion figures, suggesting that a reporter file a Freedom Of Information Act request.)

But, advocates say, Indian women continue to have the procedure off the reservation. "Native American women have abortions," Asetoyer said, "and anyone who tells you differently is out of touch with their community."

Susan Cohen, the director of government affairs at the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit reproductive health research group, said the Hyde restrictions don’t prevent abortions, but they can delay them as low-income women are forced to save the money to fund the procedures out-of-pocket. That delay, Cohen added, can lead to dangerous complications. "Having later abortions is in no one’s best interest," she said.

Meanwhile, some tribal advocates are concerned that the Vitter amendment might carry additional political significance, as the Senate bill now moves to the House for consideration. Several sources said the controversial amendment is potentially a poison pill for the overall bill, for House Democratic leaders have been loathe to codify the Hyde amendment.

Not that the issue is entirely partisan. A number of Democratic lawmakers voted to approve the Vitter provision last week, including Sens. Ken Salazar (Col.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Robert Casey (Pa.), Tim Johnson (S.D.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mark Pryor (Ark.) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.). Of that group, Landrieu and Johnson are up for reelection this year in relative conservative states, with Landrieu facing a tight race.

Three Republicans—Sens. Susan Collins (Me.), Olympia Snowe (Me.) and Arlen Specter (Pa.)—voted against the amendment. All three have historic records of bucking their party on the abortion issue.

Vitter, for his part, voted against the final IHCIA bill on the same day that his amendment passed. The final bill was approved, however, by a count of 83 to 10.

Unsafe abortions - The silent pandemic

published: Sunday | February 17, 2008
Heather Little-White, Ph.D., Contributor
Click here for article

As advocacy for increased access to safe, legal abortion continues in Jamaica, arguments for or against it are usually well presented. Unplanned or unwanted pregnancies are a reality of life, so Sheronbelieves that abortion should be made legal so that it can be safe for those who need to have one done. Sheron, 38, a victim of unsafe backdoor abortion, tells her story.

"I remember visiting the country at age 20 to visit my ailing grandmother. My grandmother had to be hospitalised and most times I was alone in the house. One day my uncle came home from work early, to my surprise. He always had 'eyes for me' but I used to tell him how disgusted I was with his behaviour. Later that day as I was taking a shower, I heard the bathroom door open, it was my uncle, naked as the day he was born ... he pushed me against the shower, and forced himself on me, raping me despite my pleas to stop. I could not fight him off with my small frame as he was a tall, heavyset man.

"I felt dirty and ashamed. Days later, I eventually found the courage to tell my mother, who did not believe me and accused me of telling lies on her brother. I cried even more. Weeks passed, I missed my period and realised that I was pregnant, I decided that no way could I carry a child for my uncle ... when my mother discovered that was I pregnant, she was alarmed and offered to take me to a 'doctor' in town.

"I remember ascending a flight of stairs to a dusty room where I was asked to lay on a table behind a black curtain. Today the visit is still vivid in my mind. I was given a cup of warn drink and soon felt drowsy. Later, the middle-aged 'doctor' asked me to spread my legs, he pressed my stomach hard, asked me to take a deep breath and I could feel a cold instrument being inserted into my vagina, then a piercing pain, after about an hour or so I was released in pain and blood, the bleeding continued for three days despite the doctor's promise of a couple hours. I realised that I had an abortion which resulted in infections and my inability to conceive later in life and the psychological effect is like a nightmare."

Sheron's story concurs with similar stories from an estimated 20 million women around the world who have unsafe abortions annually (Allan Guttmacher Institute, 1999). However, some victims of unsafe abortion do not live to tell the tale. Anti-abortionists argue that women should not find themselves in the position where they end with unplanned or unwanted pregnancies, even though these may occur for a number of reasons.

Like Sheron, pregnancy could result from incest or rape or from failure to use contraceptive, pressure from a partner not to use contraceptive, contraceptive failure and changes in circumstances that make a pregnancy unwanted, such as abandonment, relationship problems with husband or partner, risks to maternal health and financial difficulties. Women may also want to pursue educational or career goals and will want to postpone childbearing. The number of unplanned pregnancies illustrates the unmet needs of family planning.

Unsanitary conditions

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines an unsafe abortion as a procedure to terminate an unintended pregnancy by untrained persons who are styled as 'doctors', and usually in unsanitary conditions that do not conform to medical standards. In the United States, a slang term for unsafe abortions is back alley abortions, characterised by the use of a coat hanger. The magnitude of unsafe abortions in the United States led to Roe vs Wade Supreme Court decision 1973 to legalise abortion in America.

In developing countries, unsafe abortion places women at risk because abortion is highly restricted by law, or where it is legally permitted safe abortion is not easily accessible. According to WHO, an estimated 20 million unsafe abortions are performed each year with 95 per cent in developing countries. Simply put, unsafe abortions are performed at a rate of eight per hour.

Bitter concoctions

Unsafe abortion use self-induced methods which are crude, dangerous and even fatal. These include taking teas and herbal remedies, such as boiled avocado or basil leaves, wine boiled with cinnamon and raisins, boiled celery water with aspirin and bitter concoctions; ingesting alcohol and toxic solutions such as turpentine, detergent solutions, bleach and acid; pushing objects into the uterus, such as a stick, wire, coat hanger, knitting needle, ballpoint pen, bicycle spoke, rubber tubing; air blown in the vagina by a syringe and physical damage such as an abdominal or back massage, lifting heavy weight or falling or jumping from the top of stairs or roof when there is no other way to end an unwanted pregnancy. Pharmaceuticals administered include uterine stimulants, such as misoprostol or oxytocin, and quinine or chloroquine used for treating malaria.

On the contrary, safe abortions are performed by trained professionals in sterile conditions using safe methods like pharmaceuticals, suction curettage and induced labour. When performed in sanitary conditions, legal abortions are one of the safest procedures in contemporary medicine. However, the cost of safe abortions is usually prohibitive, which causes poor women to delay getting an abortion until later into the pregnancy when the risk is greater. Regardless of the legal status of abortion, the data show that poor women are at greater risk for undergoing unsafe abortions using primitive, unsafe methods for self-induced abortions.

Bleeding

Morbidity complications resulting from unsafe abortions include incomplete abortion, infection (sepsis), haemorrhage and trauma to the cervix, vagina and uterus and injury to internal organs, such as puncturing or tearing of the uterus. Long- term damage includes chronic pain, pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and infertility. Death is also a consequence of unsafe, illegal abortions. Globally, WHO estimates that 68,000 women die each year from unsafe abortions. Teenagers comprise a significant proportion of victims of unsafe abortion because they tend to wait to seek abortion later than do older women and are at greater risk of complication.

Abortions conducted in unsafe conditions put the lives of many women at risk and present a grave public health problem to governments. Consensus from the IV World Conference of Women in Beijing 1995, posited that the majority of deaths, injuries and abortion-related health problems could have been prevented with improved access to health services, including safe and effective methods of birth control and gynaecological care.

Public health issue

At the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), nations around the world agreed that societies must ensure high-quality, compassionate treatment for complications resulting from unsafe abortions; provide access to family planning; reform restrictive laws that limit the availability of safe services and trained professionals and ensure safe abortion services. Public health record indicates that safe, legal accessible abortion improves health. The ICPD conference resolved that governments should work to eliminate unsafe abortions by an integrated, comprehensive approach involving health workers, policymakers and advocates.

Name changed for privacy

Abortion is here to stay

Sam Rowlands
Published 15 February 2008
New Statesman
Debating the abortion rate is futile - we need to focus on providing information and contraception

Recourse to abortion is a feature of all societies and is as old as humanity. Women have abortions regardless of the legal situation in their country. It’s clearly much safer for a woman to have an abortion in proper medical surroundings than as a clandestine procedure performed by untrained personnel. Younger generations need to be told and older generations reminded of the results of backstreet abortion: death and permanent injury from sepsis, mechanical trauma and chemical burns.

Globally there are about 42 million abortions annually, of which nearly a half are unsafe. 68,000 deaths occur annually from unsafe abortion, almost exclusively in the developing world.

It’s true that in the past, in countries like the former Soviet Union, because of almost complete lack of access to contraceptives women used abortion as a primary means of fertility control. This is not so nowadays in the West. But women clearly use abortion as an adjunct to contraception in the event of non-use, incorrect use, inconsistent use or failure of contraception. The most commonly used methods, the pill and condoms, have substantial failure rates in everyday use. This is why there is a current push from the National Institute for Health & Clinical Excellence for wider adoption of long-acting reversible methods (injections, implants and intrauterine devices).

Emergency contraception (pills or intrauterine devices administered after unprotected sex) have the potential to make inroads into the abortion rate. So far though, its use is not widespread enough to make any detectable difference.

An estimated 108 million married women in developing countries have an unmet need for contraception. So, there is potential here for reducing abortions in these countries. Availability of contraception in Eastern Europe has improved and abortion rates have fallen, but rates remains much higher than in the rest of Europe with more abortions than births.

Countries such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland have low abortion rates. High use of contraception and universal sex education almost certainly play an important part there. The specifics of their abortion laws and how they operate in practice will be relevant too. Abortion rates are determined by a complex range of factors including family size intentions, confidence in the safety of contraceptives, amount of sexual activity in adolescents and where the country concerned is in its demographic transition.

There has been a continuing decline of the abortion rate in the United States since it peaked in 1981, although it remains well above that of Western Europe. Increased use of contraception has contributed to this decline. Much of the decline took place in eight states in which efforts have been made to deliver good sex education, not the Bush administration’s abstinence-only approach. One suspects some of the decline is due to restrictive state laws causing delays or preventing some women altogether from having an abortion. These restrictions unfortunately have a disproportionate effect on the poor. And such a decline is not a unique trend - it may be part of a global decline which has been measured between 1995 and 2003.

In Britain the abortion rate has increased year on year since legalisation in 1968, but after 1998 this increase has been slower. There are signs that women’s desire to control their fertility is now being met by service availability.

Abortion is here to stay. There is little point debating whether our abortion rate is too high. What we should be concentrating on is making sure that women requesting abortion are supplied with evidence-guided information on which to base their decision. They should all be offered medical abortion: in this respect England and Wales are lagging behind Scotland. All women should be offered screening for infection. And all women should be offered contraception, including long-acting methods. Further research is needed on factors that detract from consistent use of contraception and from this possible effective interventions can be developed.

Dr Sam Rowlands is a freelance specialist in contraception and reproductive health and a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the University of Warwick.

What is The New York Times' problem with abortion?

In These 'Times'
The newspaper of record's squeamishness about abortion.

By Debbie Nathan
The New Republic
Published: Thursday, February 14, 2008

What is The New York Times' problem with abortion? The editorial page consistently supports sex education, birth control, and the right to legally end unwanted pregnancy. The rest of the Times, however, often seems uncomfortable with concrete applications of these principles. Not a season goes by that a news item or magazine feature doesn't imply that women who get abortions are acting with egotism, unhealthiness, and cruelty.

The most recent instance of this is Annie Murphy Paul's "The First Ache," in last Sunday's Magazine. "When does the experience of pain begin?" the subtitle asks. "Anti-abortion activists aren't the only ones to argue that it may be in the womb."

Paul's article, which runs over 5,000 words, begins with a doctor in Arkansas claiming that fetuses as immature as 20 weeks after gestation suffer agonies when prodded and cut during, say, prenatal surgery. And--the point of the piece--when they're aborted.

But then other doctors start discussing the Arkansas physician's claim, and their opinions are all over the map. One insists that fetuses feel no pain until at least 29 weeks. Another pushes the pain date all the way forward to 18 weeks. Someone else says that even born babies can't feel pain until they're one year old. Clearly, there's no consensus on the issue. But the lack of agreement is lost amid the article's looming intimation that women who end their pregnancies are hurting their fetuses. Paul never specifies that the vast majority of abortions--more than 96 percent--are performed before 18 weeks' gestation, the earliest date being claimed for the beginning of fetal pain. Nor does she mention that American women are getting abortions earlier and earlier in their pregnancies: The rate occurring in the first eight weeks has increased sharply in recent years, with many now done in the sixth week of pregnancy or earlier. Without these statistics, the article's main effect is to make female readers feel guilty and confused about abortion.

Paul's is not the only problem piece to run in the Sunday Magazine. Another, by Slate senior editor Emily Bazelon, appeared last January and looked at "post-abortion syndrome" (PAS). A takeoff on PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), PAS is not recognized by the psychiatric or psychotherapy establishment because there's no scientific evidence it exists. But moral conservatives out to overturn Roe v. Wade have popularized the purported malady among women who've had abortions. And last year, the Supreme Court cited affidavits submitted by people claiming they've suffered from PAS. The court said the risk to women of contracting the risk of "severe depression and loss of esteem" was one reason to ban "dilation and extraction"--better known as "partial birth" abortion. If for no other reason than this politicking, PAS is well worth exploring.

Problem is, Bazelon skips lightly over politics, focusing instead on fuzzy profiles of self-described PAS sufferers. One is Rhonda Arias, an evangelical minister who runs PAS-support groups in Texas women's prisons. Bazelon follows Arias as she holds forth in one facility, reading from the New Testament, playing gospel music, and handing dolls to inmates who weep as they mourn their aborted offspring. Then Arias asks these prisoners to send her testimonies about their PAS to her so she can submit them to places like the Supreme Court.

To be fair, Bazelon spends a long time discussing the piled-up scientific evidence showing that PAS doesn't exist, with many interviews from respected researchers illustrating the consensus that it's just a right-wing talking-point. Still, Bazelon writes that Arias's audience members "drink in [her] preaching," and about how Arias "ministers from the heart" with her face "alight." We read that Arias conducted a study with data culled from prisoner reports of psychological trauma from abortion (which she later sent to the Supreme Court). But Bazelon does not remind us that prison inmates are considered a terrible source of data for psychology studies. They are a captive population at great risk of saying whatever they think people in authority--including researchers--want to hear. Nor are we told that one facility where Arias does her PAS data collection has been cited by inmates as lacking access to work and substance abuse programs. Another prison houses all nine women on Texas's death row and is among the state's ten most violent prisons. No wonder inmates might exchange PAS testimonials for hugs and music.

And Bazelon only glances over the Justice Foundation, a Texas group that funded the collection of those PAS affidavits for delivery to the Supreme Court. The article calls the foundation "a conservative law center," but doesn't say that it was founded by, and gets its money from, James Leininger, a Christian right winger and one of the richest people in Texas. Leininger has used the Justice Foundation and other groups, also funded by him, to pack the Texas school board with members who oppose sex education and favor censoring textbooks. He has bankrolled political campaigns in which candidates who don't toe his line have been smeared with charges that they promote illegal drug use and homosexuality to school children. And he is staunchly anti-choice: Using the Justice Foundation, he almost single-handedly has enabled the gathering of PAS affidavits to erode Roe v. Wade. Rhonda Arias would be a nobody without this man's fortune and political designs. He's as important as she is--if not more so--to understand the PAS push.


Magazine articles aren't the Times's only problem. News stories also sometimes issue strange and conflicting messages about abortion. Last spring, for instance, a long piece appeared on the front page: "Today's Face of Abortion in China is a Young, Unmarried Woman," by Jim Yardley with Lin Yang contributing. The article's point seemed to be that, back when China coerced married women to have only one child, it wasn't their fault they had to get abortions--but now, single young women are obtaining them voluntarily. And this is bad.

Why bad? The article reeks with veiled references to selfishness and irresponsibility. The first paragraph says, "it was her second abortion in 18 months." Indeed, most patients sitting at a clinic with this woman have already had an abortion; one is on her sixth! And how did they find the clinic? The article notes that private abortion clinics proliferate in China now, and newspapers there run "sensational" ads promising "Painless Abortions." (The reporters seem unaware that ethnic papers in New York City, such as El Diario, are stuffed with identical ads, and that most abortions in this country are done at private facilities.)

Again, numbers are used out of context. The Times cites the number of abortions per year in China, and the number in this country: 7.1 million there, 1.29 million here--an alarming differential until you recall that China's population is over four times that of the US. The article never mentions this basic data.

A headline was the problem in another front page story, which ran on January 31. The article reported that Shanghai Hualian, a big pharmaceuticals manufacturer in China, made a contaminated leukemia drug that sickened patients in that country. The same firm produces all the RU-486 distributed in the U.S. (the drug is used to induce non-surgical abortions). But the FDA said the company's RU-486 factory had passed many inspections and is safe. The Times reported this at length. So why was the articled titled "Tainted Drugs Linked to Maker of Abortion Pill"?

To be sure, Times stories are not always pursed-lipped about abortion. Spring 2006 saw a national scare about a deadly bacterial infection associated with RU-486 abortions. In a follow-up article in May, reporter Gardiner Harris pointed out that infection with the same bacteria might be a risk for pregnant women who intend to have their babies. Harris even quoted two New York woman who'd had multiple abortions, some done surgically and some with RU-486. They discussed the pros and cons of each procedure, and one woman allowed publication of her name: Anne Hawkins. The whole thing was refreshingly matter of fact and devoid of cryptic moralizing. But the article was buried near the back of the A section.

Then there was the disturbing flap at the Magazine two years ago, after a cover piece about illegal abortion in Latin America reported on a woman in El Salvador who supposedly was criminally convicted for aborting her 18-week fetus. Post publication, it turned out the woman was actually judged guilty of murdering her newborn, full-term baby. The reporter had never bothered to read the court records, and the Magazine's fact checkers hadn't either. In its eagerness to champion abortion rights in a country that has none, the paper had gotten sloppy. And on its own national turf, where long-established rights are being chipped at, sloppiness runs in the other direction.

So, what's going on at the Times? Maybe only what's happening in the whole culture. Liberals and even feminists have bought into the reasoning that abortion is basically immoral, and if women could just be educated and dosed with birth control, we wouldn't have to terminate any pregnancies. Bill Clinton's famous formulation, that abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare," has become conventional wisdom.

It's the line on the Times editorial page. In other sections, awkward reality intrudes, making reporters and editors skittish. Women--particularly young and poor women--don't take their contraceptives, and when they get pregnant many wait to go to the abortion clinic. Then they get pregnant again. Their behavior seems mysterious and threatening. They become scapegoats, not just for the Right, but for older and more educated liberals, too. That's the demographic who work at the Times, and a good percentage of its readership. But the Gray Lady is powerful way beyond New York liberal circles. And by making anti-woman moral judgments and obsessing over "problems" with no good evidence they exist, she's abusing her nation and the world.

Debbie Nathan is a New York City-based journalist. Her latest book, Pornography (Groundwood Press), explains the subject to teenagers and young adults.

Men's Abortion Rights: What Will They Think of Next?

By Sherrie L. Porter, Communication Intern

January 18, 2008

The religious right has fought hard to chip away at women's rights and personal freedoms for decades. Over the years, we have faced a range of attempts – some successful - to take away a woman's control over her body. Men's abortions rights, the newest disturbing trend in the battle to undermine Roe v Wade, claims that men are "victims" of abortion.

The idea of male victims stems from the concept of "post-abortion syndrome" -- a nonscientific term coined in the 1980s by abortion opponents who claim that women experience psychological trauma after terminating a pregnancy. While there are no long-term, credible research studies, proponents of this creatively named "condition" claim it leads to depression in women, as well as alcoholism and drug addiction.

In a recent Los Angeles Times piece, "Changing Abortion's Pronoun," writer Stephanie Simon sees the political calculation behind the curtain: "Abortion is one of the most common surgeries in the country, with more than 1 million performed a year; while some who chose the procedure surely come to regret it, doctors say they see no epidemic of trauma in either men or women."

Despite the lack of evidence for post-abortion syndrome in either gender, anti-abortion advocates suggest "lost fatherhood" can lead to domestic violence and an addiction to sex. Both claims seem to suggest a rationale for men behaving badly. Men, they suggest, experience symptoms of post-abortion syndrome equally if not more powerfully than women. Male victims throughout the country are sharing stories of "their abortions." In November, anti-abortion activists met in San Francisco for what they boasted was "the first ever conference on the effects of abortion on men."

In the movement for men's abortion rights, Ohio legislators are attempting to make headway. Ohio house bill 287, seeks to give a man the legal right to decide whether or not the woman he impregnates should get an abortion and would make it mandatory for all women to have the written consent of "the father of the fetus" before she can go forward with the procedure. Under the same legislation, rape and incest victims would need a police report to "prove" they need an abortion. As for a woman who does not know (or doesn't want to reveal) who the man is, she would be unable to elect the procedure. Anyone, including doctors, who violate the bill would be guilty of "abortion fraud" and charged with a misdemeanor.

"If a woman wishes to include a man in her decision about whether or not to continue a pregnancy, she may do so. But the state cannot mandate that she do so," said NOW President Kim Gandy. "Requiring a 'permission slip' for abortion would mock the right guaranteed in Roe v. Wade."

Ohio HB 287 was introduced by Republican State Rep. John Adams in July 2007 and now sits at the desk of the House Health Committee. While it is unlikely that the bill will set sail--due to a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it is not Constitutional--NOW activists are working across the country to fight the continual assaults on women's reproductive autonomy.

"What the extremists really want is an end to all abortion and birth control, severely restricting the personal, medical decisions of every woman in the U.S.," said NOW Action Vice President Melody Drnach. "While we will fight this legislation and every other attempt to deny our reproductive rights, we will not take our eyes off of the very real and dangerous fight that these extremists are waging against women."

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