Dear Friend and Reader,
Oppression tastes good in Arkansas, so good that the state has started banning things that have already been banned. Last Thursday, Arkansas’ State House and Senate simultaneously passed the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act.
Translating this to Astrology for Conservatives, Obama’s actions during the first week of his presidency were probably overload, and it is playing out in a Saturn opposite Uranus face-off that will likely continue through 2010. It’s a progressive vs. regressive face-off. It represents a cultural split that is not inherently political;В it is something in the human race right now, reflected in the astrology of Saturn and Uranus.
The two primary blows to conservatives were the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and overturning the Mexico City Policy, and Conservatives responded last week with a “feel-good” ban on late-term abortion. While I’m no expert, I’d venture a guess that the most misunderstood procedure in the realm of reproductive rights would be the easiest to pass a law against, especially if the procedure has already been banned. Abortions performed after 20 weeks’ gestation fit the bill.
You see, Arkansas’ Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act would make late-term abortions illegal — if it weren’t already illegal. Everyone’s favorite president signed a national ban on late-term abortion into law on Nov. 5, 2003. So what’s with all the hullabaloo? Ak. is hoping that, just in case the national ban is overturned during Obama’s presidency, their state won’t have to reinstitute the procedure.
Like many taboo subjects, it would do a lot of good to get the abortion out in the air. I read an article on Nerve’s website this week by Lauren B. called “Roe vs. Wade vs. My Boyfriend,” in which hers addresses the reaction men have to her abortion. In my experience, it doesn’t have to be a personal account to get negative feedback. While researching for this article, I asked my guy friend and fellow writer what his position was on late-term abortion. He wrote back one thing: “Gross.”
Word. It is gross: most surgery is, and Arkansas definitely capitalized on the “ew” factor in this case. If you’d like specifics, read the pdf of Act 196 and scroll down to Section 3. My point, which I promise I’m getting around to making, is that “ick” is not a reason to ban something. If it were, there’d be no such thing as proctology.
The ban on late-term abortion is the truly horrible part of the procedure. Of the personal accounts I’ve read (here’s one and here’s another), I’ve come away with feelings of emotional pain and intense sorrow for would-be parents that went through this. These are cases of anecephaly, spina bifida and stillborns — not healthy fetuses and pregnant women in denial or a state of sudden cold feet, as the state of Arkansas and the Bush anti-choice team [of men] would lead us to believe.
It’s strange and disturbing to think that with all the good the Obama administration is attempting to do, there is an equal and opposite reaction from the Right. But I don’t think Arkansas would be as successful at becoming the scariest place in the country if we let go of shame and came out. I’m not just talking about sexuality here: after hearing about Arkansas last week, and South Dakota’s near-miss in November, it’s beginning to look like reproductive rights is the biggest closet case in the heterosexual world.
I’m saying this because I can’t remember the last time I saw an “Ask Me About My Abortion” pin or t-shirt. So come out and tell us about it and help out a southern sister: times are tough down there.
Yours & truly,
Rachel Asher
Victoria,
your story reminds me of a story my mother has always told, and also her pivot moment of absolute pro-choice feeling. 1975, she was in the hospital after having my brother, and was going to get a tubal ligation. she had had a stillbirth many years prior and had been told that her body could not handle another pregnancy. suddenly, she heard torturous screams coming from the room next door, and asked what was wrong with the woman.
the woman had had five children in five years, and finally, as was required in Arizona at that time, her husband had granted his permission for her to have a tubal ligation. except that he came back that morning at 5am, and revoked his permission, and the doctors would not do the procedure, so the woman screamed and screamed and screamed.
can you imagine being pregnant and having to go before a judge and get permission to have an abortion? this still happens, particularly to “minor” girls. i shudder to think.
that story my mother told me always left a chill in my heart and has always been a marker for me to say NO. no person, woman, but particularly man, will tell me what to do and not do with my body.
Victorious!!
“He judged me sane and granted the procedure.”
wowowowowowow! wow! That is quite a story!! I bow down before the All Stubborn and Self-Knowing Victorious!
Seriously,
Deep bow…
m
I somehow always knew I would not birth children. I was called selfish a million times for this choice.
I came of age when PP was well funded and birth control was readily available. I took those pills. It was the day when the hormone dose was extreme because we did not know how much was needed to prevent the egg drop. I took the pills at night before sleeping, because if I took them upon waking, I would be nauseous all morning. It was better to sleep through the nausea.
At age 32, I decided I really was not going to birth children, so I decided to get neutered. This was an extreme act of selfishness I was told. My doctor and his assistant held back tears at this decision. What if I met a gorgeous man and was not able to give him children, she asked. I told her I have a gorgeous man and all I want to do is be able to have sexual interplay with him without conception of a child. They sent me to a shrink. I told him that I seemed to be actracted to trouble, dangerously playful men, and that I was not comfortable with that as an environment to bring a child into, and that I did not want to raise a child by myself. He judged me sane and granted the procedure. There was something very freeing about being neutered. Somehow this selfish person, felt more woman than ever.
Not for everybody, but right for me. It’s personal.
Hi Ladies,
Thanks for commenting, having this conversation out in the open is something that rarely happens, and I really appreciate the candor.
Lorin: here’s a link to some pro choice pins: http://www.mushycat.com/cgi/mushysearch.cgi?q=pro-choice
And a t-shirt, though Planned Parenthood has a whole slew of merchandise if you want to browse:
http://shop.cafepress.com/design/20773411
-Rachel
I have been pregnant twice. The first time I had an abortion, not a pleasant experience by the way, tense, painful and frightening even though I had a kind woman holding my hand talking me through the experience. Of course I am happy I could make that choice along w/ everyone that is able to make a choice.
The second time I became pregnant I was in my early 30’s and my life at the time was not about becoming a mother. I struggled with the choice to have the child or have an abortion. I made an appointment to have the abortion, but I kept having visions of myself jumping up off the table and running from the room. I decided to save myself from that scenario and embrace the new life, my own and the one growing inside me. Which I have. We could have a discussion at this point about the expectation and interpolation of “mother” of which I have plenty to say but maybe another time.
The ick factor is just that. Sounds like it should be a tv survival show, or is it already. I can’t take that seriously. These types of laws are made to have control over womens bodies, icky or not.
i am the poster child for Planned Parenthood, and yes, it is scary that i live less than fifteen minutes from Arkansas in a car. it’s a hop, skip, and a jump from me here in Memphis. having gotten pregnant the very first time i ever had sex (at 17), and having chosen to have an abortion, all of this is very close to home for me. i am so thankful i was able to make the choice i did. Arkansas is just one of the messed up places – there are many. and until women speak up about their choices with no shame, and – even just as important – men stand up and speak with honesty about the right to have a choice – this will keep happening. remove the issue from the shadows. where can i get one of those pins?
I had four abortions between 19 and 26 years of age. When I had the daughterest, it was a conscious decision to catch and keep. I remember that during the second I had to talk my doc through it. He was young and a bit nervous. I was chronologically younger, but he was the newbie in the room.
After 27 I figured out how to map my ovaries. That was the end of the issue.
Both of my children knew beyond a doubt that their gestations were elected. I do think that speculating on the *idea* that your mother could and would dispose of the first tbsp of “you”-ness is unnerving, perhaps especially so for what my mentor Anya Foos called “one-lifers.”
It goes back to the issue of ensoulment upon conception. Which would require that we understand ensoulment at every other point in the incarnatory cycle. I keep hoping that some breakthrough in CogSci and philosophy will help illuminate this question, but so far the idiot-materialists are running the game. Doofuses left with the gloppy underslime of the mind/body split. Galen Strawson may be the exception – I’m waiting for his _ Consciousness and Its Place in Nature_ now.
***
**
*
The “ick” factor. . . a gay guy friend of mine said women’s vaginas are gross and how could a man go anywhere near one. My response was, you fuck shit, what are you talking about. I think jelly donuts, slimy energy that pushes against my personal space, manure runoff into waterways, and the religious rightful are icky, just to name a few. So the ick factor is personal and nothing to make a law about.
Really never thought about ick and abortion, figured it was some kind of psychology to do with feeling unwanted or something. Who knows what’s on the razorback’s minds.