Dear Friend and Reader:
It’s amazing, isn’t it? We made it through two terms of baby Bush without losing Roe vs. Wade. Today is the 36th anniversary of the Roe decision, so take a moment to appreciate it — we’ve scraped through with three-and-a-half decades of reproductive freedom in this country. That’s my entire lifetime plus a dozen years; anyone would call that a safe margin.
Reproductive rights was priority one in the 1970s, during the second wave of feminism: the first wavers were the suffragettes, the third started in the 1990s. [This revolutionary period was also marked by Eris’ presence. You can read more about Eris and the 1970s feminist movement in this article.] And, though R v. W is probably the moniker I’d stitch into the proverbial second wave bathrobe — yes, it’s morning in New York — some advances have found survival a little more challenging.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest sexual and reproductive health care provider, started a program called Planned Parenthood International in 1971, two years before the Roe case was decided in the Supreme Court. Their primary aim has been to offer reproductive education and technology to developing countries, meaning access to birth control, condoms, abortions and explaining how pregnancy happens and how to prevent it.
In 1971, the program was funded by the US government. Then, in 1984, Reagan instituted the Mexico City Policy, also known as the Global Gag Rule, which bans US funding for international programs that perform and/or promote abortion.
There is a pretty interesting pattern that’s developed since 1984. Because the presidential inauguration falls on Jan. 20, the celebration of Roe vs. Wade always comes a couple of days after a new president takes office. And, since Reagan, the Roe anniversary has been the day for the new president to execute his pro- or anti-choice beliefs by rescinding or re-instating the Mexico City Policy.
Here’s the play-by-play: in 1984, Reagan instituted the policy, and daddy Bush kept it. Clinton rescinded it in 1993: baby Bush re-instituted it in 2001. Today, Jan. 22, 2009, President Obama took it away again, allowing public funding to reach organizations that support abortion. Is your head spinning? Mine is getting more of that tennis-match feeling.
To boil it down, it’s much easier for the current president to play ping-pong with policy than with Supreme Court decisions, and that’s why Roe has made it to the ripened age of 36. But public funding for poor people in developing countries hasn’t had the same staying power as our domestic law permitting abortions. At least today, and thanks to our Democratic president, things have switched back to the brighter side and I’m looking forward to that swish sound money makes when it shoots through the pipes and into Planned Parenthood offices. They’ll only do good things with it.
When we think about reproductive rights, we tend to think about the right to abortion. Really, it’s about family planning, and thinking about this takes me to Arkansas. The Arkansas Unmarried Couple Adoption Ban will be one month old on Feb. 1, and it’s prevented couples from adopting children if they’re not married. This is not just affecting same-sex couples, the Ban applies to single people, cohabiting straight couples, anyone without a marriage contract stowed away in their linen drawer.
The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Ban on Dec. 30, two days before the Ban was enacted, with 29 couples and children from over a dozen families participating in the case. You can read the ACLU’s brief here, and it includes the stories of a handful of the families involved in the suit. They run the gamut, and it really illustrates the diversity of unmarried people who still manage to be upstanding citizens. Go figure.
I don’t know where Focus on the Family, the religious right organization that supported this ban, thinks this is going. If they had it their way, there’d be both a ban on abortion and a ban like Arkansas’ against unmarried people adopting and fostering. What are they envisioning, some kind of mutant hybrid of Oliver Twist and Multiplicity? There are enough children without permanent homes as it is, I truly don’t understand the logic behind reducing the number of available foster homes and adoptive parents.
Eight years ago, I was finishing my last year of high school, watching the television broadcast the results of the presidential election. I distinctly remember the feeling of a wide, dark cloud passing overhead, and a lot of this came from my fear for Roe. I was so sure it would be overturned during the Bush administration that I started reading Wise Woman Herbal and vowed to learn how to give natural abortions. It’s not from lack of trying on Bush’s part, especially with his nominations of Roberts and Alito,В but Roe did survive, we made it through to the other side.
With the Obama sails at our backs, and a jump-start with the overturning of the Mexico City Policy, things are looking hopeful again. It’s going to be harder to shut down abortion clinics, to allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense medication (read: RU-486, birth control pills) they disagree with morally and to fund abstinence-only sex indoctrination. Abstinence-only is one of the most damaging programs we have in this country, and one that Planned Parenthood has fought consistently and intelligently. The stage is set, all we have to do is get on it.
Yours & truly,
Rachel Asher
Ooops! Should do research first Organization is much older than I cognated prior to mid-1990’s when they started to open their petals wide and far; from their media website:
PATH was originally founded as the Program for the Introduction and Adaptation of Contraceptive Technology (PIACT) in 1977. PIACT transitioned to PATH in 1980.
PATH’s mission is to improve the health of people around the world by advancing technologies, strengthening systems, and encouraging healthy behaviors.
**
And, as emergency contraception educational pioneers for this country, all from the little neighborhood in Seattle known as �the center of universe,’ aka Fremont. You know, there’s a full sized rocket for fun in the center of the �hood!
Ooops! Should do research first 🙂 Organization is much older than I cognated prior to mid-1990’s when they started to open their petals wide and far; from their media website:
PATH was originally founded as the Program for the Introduction and Adaptation of Contraceptive Technology (PIACT) in 1977. PIACT transitioned to PATH in 1980.
PATH’s mission is to improve the health of people around the world by advancing technologies, strengthening systems, and encouraging healthy behaviors.
**
And, as emergency contraception educational pioneers for this country, all from the little neighborhood in Seattle known as ‘the center of universe,’ aka Fremont. You know, there’s a full sized rocket for fun in the center of the ‘hood!
[http://www.path.org/reproductive-health.php]
Thank you for the reminder of how important it is to have access to safe reproductive health care, Rachel. I am grateful for the opportunities I mostly take for granted but I also have some real questions about the accomplishments of the 2nd wave of feministas and what they have meant for women in america. It seems they may have made a faustian bargain that we are beginning to see the repercussions of more clearly – we have been willing to trade our strengths as women (we create life) in order to be more like men (leave our children to make money and prove ourselves worthy for accomplishing career goals). I found the following piece of writing about THe ChurcH of the Culdee’s stance on abortion interesting – I will copy the link so you can read the whole piece but copy a brief bit here that I think is pertinent. Some perspectives note that the Druid nature religion, which held learned women in high esteem transformed into the Culdee faith when the Romans arrived.
“Our stand is simple, but not simplistic, we acknowledge the very strong pressures acting in our society that persuade women to terminate their pregnancies, even when, if given an option, they would prefer not to. The strongest and most persuasive of these arguments is that abortion is an issue of women’s freedom and equal rights. Abortion is seen as the crowning achievement of the feminist movement, total control over our own reproductive capacities. My contention is just the opposite, rather than the zenith of women’s freedom, abortion, as it exists in this country, as an industry, is the final capitulation, the submerging of the female into the prevailing masculine, patriarchal culture.
What abortion says to women is this: If you want to be equal in this society, if you want to keep your jobs, get promotions, retain your scholarships, your places in school, maintain relationships, you must be like a man. You must not require this society to change in any way to accommodate the fact that you are different. If you want to be equal you must be the same as those who make the rules, you must not be inconvenient, you must not make trouble, you must abide by rules made without your voice being heard. Most of all, you must be willing to kill that which makes you different, you must be willing to participate in the assimilation of your own gender.
Women will never be equal in this society, or any other, until everything that a woman is is accepted and valued by the society. This society is set up on a masculine model in its government, its businesses, its schools and its families. A woman entering the workforce or the educational system is expected to live and work according to the written and unwritten rules of behavior that were made with no regard for the unique nature of being female. It is not wrong to state that the genders are different, it is obvious that they are, and the drive for gender uniformity has done great harm to women. It is only wrong when those differences are used to repress and subjugate people of either gender. As human beings men and women are equal in value, to God and to society, but we are not the same. We must learn to celebrate our differences, rather than use them to abuse each other.” taken from http://members.peak.org/~culdee/abort.html
The last comment I have regarding abortion in america is that Roe v. Wade is really about the right to privacy. Perhaps if we shift the dialogue to acknowledge some of these issues it might be more useful at this point? Dunno but I am glad to be part of the conversation and glad we can have still have it.
You’ve piqued my curiosity in this point. How do we set the stage, word the script, speak our deepest feelings regarding the matter,…… what options do we have? I’m honestly very curious as to your true words regarding inequality of sexual freedom. I would love to read the vent. It just may be a cool thing!?
Personally, It’s all beyond me, as far as the bigotry is concerned… I have absolutely NO grasp on the fundamentals of fucking other people over! PLEASE speak it “as you see it” that way I can have half a clue as to what to possibly expect on my journey, and have half a clue as to how to possibly react… or acknowledge reaction.
Thank you Rachel, you’re a groovy gal!
Love & good stuff!!!
Thanks. Maybe you folks could do an article on Path [www.path.org] as part of private sector initiatives addressing global health?
They were one of the first to distribute kits to women in 3rd world countries back in 1990’s. A friend worked for them at start up and we laughed; the kit needed to be handed out on the plaza at the local U!