Naral Pro-Choice America Blog For Choice Day: 2013

I am pro-choice because I am pro-woman. I believe that male violence is the root of women's oppression. I believe that women can never be free of male violence without complete reproductive freedom.

Complete reproductive freedom requires:

Free access to healthcare
Free access to contraception
Free 24 hour access to childcare
Free access to education
Free access to abortion on demand

Complete reproductive freedom requires a welfare state so that women can make the choice to have a child without worrying about not being able to feed that child. That is the hallmark of a humane society. Anyone who is anti-abortion and who also supports the current destruction of our welfare state is a hypocrite who should not be allowed to have PIV.

I believe that women are not only fully human but are also capable of making decisions for themselves.

I support unlimited access to abortion on demand. I believe women are more than capable of making decisions for their own bodies.

I believe that we need more sex education for children that their parents can not opt out on.

I trust women to make the decision to have an abortion or to continue with a pregnancy for themselves.

I trust women to make the decision without political interference.

I trust women.

Preventing access to abortion is just another form of Violence against Women.

It is just another front in the War on Women.

I am pro-choice because I believe women are human too.

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Another Example of Why The Term "Pro-Life" is Deeply Offensive

In the too little, too late category, two investigations have been opened into the PREVENTABLE death of Savita Halappanavar (31) who was denied a life-saving abortion in Ireland;  you know, the ONLY type of abortion legally available in Ireland. Yet, Halappanavar was denied an abortion to save her life despite the fact that she was miscarrying.  Halappanavar was denied an abortion for 3 days despite repeatedly asking and with the knowledge that the foetus had no chance of survival because her doctors made the decision to deny her a life-saving treatment. Instead, Halappanavar died of septicaemia. 

I can not adequately express how unbelievably angry this makes me. I hate anti-choicers and I am sick of them prancing about calling themselves "pro-life". They aren't pro-life. They are hypocritical woman-hating, uterus-controlling anti-choicers and they deserve neither our respect nor our time.

It is just another form of Violence against Women. 

It is just another front in the War on Women

Please join Abortion Rights so that we can continue campaigning to prevent more women from dying because of religious intolerance and medical arrogance. Every woman has the right to an abortion when they need it. No one has the right to deny women this choice.

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I am Pro-Woman not Pro-Choice

You see, unlike all the penises who believe they have the right to dictate the contents of a woman's uterus, I happen to believe that women are not only fully human but are also capable of making decisions for themselves. Without the help of a penis. 

I support unlimited access to abortion on demand because I believe women are human. I believe women are more than capable of making decisions for their own bodies. 

I believe no woman will have an abortion at 37 weeks for shits and giggles. 

I believe that we need more sex education for children that their parents can not opt out on.

I trust women to make the decision to have an abortion or to continue with a pregnancy for themselves.

I trust women to make the decision without political interference. 

I trust women.

The people I don't trust are the anti-women nincompoops who want to curtail women's rights to access abortion. I don't trust male politicians who will never have to make the choice to write the laws which will effect my body. My "pro-choice" MP didn't think it was important for him to show up to the debate in parliament today since the debate was "purely for expressions of view, and do not make binding policy. There are no votes at the end of these debates." His refusal to attend meant that the voices of the anti-choice women-haters were the loudest. His refusal meant that the men who claim that fetuses are "fully human" were heard and not the voices of those who believe that women are fully human. 

These men dictating their right to control the contents of a woman's uterus are the same men who voted for cuts to benefits. It is the same men who are currently carving up the NHS. Who do they think will pay for the incredibly expensive neo-natal care of a fetus born at 22 weeks? As one of the anti-choicers pointed out today in the debate, people were already fundraising for special care baby units. Where will this money come from now that the NHS is being destroyed? Who will pay for the long-term care of these children? Who will pay for their housing as housing benefit is slashed? Who will pay for their education as the schools budget is decimated? Who will pay for their childcare as benefit payments are destroyed? 

Anyone who is anti-abortion and who also votes to cuts to the welfare state, in any shape or form, is a hypocrite. I'm sick to death of the hypocrites. 

I am pro-choice because I believe women are human too.

Some excellent blogs on abortion: 

I'm a civilian, not a ship's captain.

How I lost faith in the pro-life movement

40 Days of Choice

Please join Abortion Rights today.

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We're a Culture Not a Costume:

I love Halloween. It is my favourite holiday ever. When I was a child, Halloween was about making the most original costume possible. Witches, skeletons and cats were dull. I have been a ladybug, a broken heart, a cabbage patch kid and a punk rocker; my mother being far more artistic than me. Unfortunately, the push to be creative at Halloween involved costumes based entirely on offensive and racist stereotypes. I frequently find myself with clenched teeth handing out candy to small children dressed as "Indians" wondering why their parents thought it was a good idea to dress their child up as a racist stereotype.






Last year, a group of students from Ohio University's Students Teaching about Racism started a campaign called "We're a culture, not a costume' on this issue. These are some of the brilliant posters from this years campaign whose tagline is "You wear the costume for one night. I wear the stigma for life". For me, this is a feminist issue. The Patriarchy requires racism as much as it requires misogyny to keep functioning. We can not destroy the Patriarchy whilst this type of racism remains socially acceptable.

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War on Women: The Abortion Battle.

Nadine Dorries has secured a 90 minute debate spot on abortion on Wednesday October 31 at 9:30. She is asking for the limit for abortions in the UK to be reduced from 24 weeks to 22 weeks. This is just a debate. There will be no vote, however, Dorries is using this as the second stage of her attack on abortion rights. Her next stage is a full parliamentary debate in the Spring of 2003 where Dorries would like to decrease the time limit on abortions to, at the most, 20 weeks. Considering the support Dorries already has from the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, this is quite clearly a concerted attack on women's bodily autonomy. Women in the UK already do not have the right to abortion on demand. Women in the UK need greater access to abortion without judgement. We can not allow Nadine Dorries continue her War on Women's bodies. 

Please write to your MP today to ensure that they vote to keep the abortion limit at 24 weeks. There is an excellent form letter available here on Edinburgh Eye's blog.

Petition here to end the legal requirement for two doctors signatures for a woman to access an abortion.

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Everyone Needs To Join Abortion Rights Today.

So, Jeremy Hunt still thinks the time limit for abortion should be cut from 24 weeks to 12 weeks. I don't care that Hunt is wandering about claiming this is just his personal opinion and that the Department of Health swears there is no discussion about changing the limit, we have a Health secretary and the Minister for Women both espousing pro-life rhetoric. Nadine Dorries is still campaigning to change the regulations on abortion counselling services. The war on reproductive rights has already started and our, already limited, access to abortion is getting worse. 

All women [and men] should be joining Abortion Rights today. 

We can not allow these misogynists to curtail women's rights further.

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#mariamillerdoesnotspeakforme

I think it is sufficiently obvious that I am pro-choice; that I do not believe that anyone has the right to dictate to a woman what she can and can not do to her own body. I believe that the only person whose opinion counts in abortion is the woman making the decision whether or not to have one. I support the right to abortion to term because I dislike the hierarchy of good versus bad abortions. I also believe that most women will choose to have their abortion at the earliest possible date once they've made their decision.

It should come as no surprise that I think Maria Miller is, at best, disingenuous but mostly an anti-choice liar. This is the twaddle Miller came out with in an interview with Cathy Newman, who herself speaks eloquently of the second trimester abortion she chose to have: 

"Absolutely. You have got to look at these matters in a commonsense way. I looked at it from the really important stance of the impact on women and children."

...

"driven by that very practical impact that late term abortion has on women … What we are trying to do here is not to put obstacles in people's way but to reflect the way medical science has moved on."

Miller voted in support of Nadine Dorries' bill to have the upper limit of abortion decreased from 24 weeks to 20 weeks; a bill not supported by anyone with an ounce of empathy. Having a Tory minister for women who seems to hate women is not at all surprising in a government who seem to be out to destroy women what with the whole making an anti-choicer the minister for health.

So, yeah, Maria Miller does not speak for me. The legal right to a safe abortion is a right all women need. 

And, if Maria Miller is a very modern feminist, I am a hamster.

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The Right to Abortion on Demand

Yesterday was the International Day of Action for Safe and Legal Abortion. Whilst abortion is legal in the UK, it is not available on demand.* Abortion can only be carried out in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy if two doctors agree that "abortion would cause less damage to a woman's physical or mental health than continuing with the pregnancy". That's only if you're lucky enough to live on the mainland. Abortion isn't available in Northern Ireland. There are some obvious exceptions to the 24 week rule involving saving the life of the mother or preventing grave or serious injury to her; as well as the more difficult issue of aborting a fetus due to disability.** 

I find any limits on abortion problematic. I think all women should have access to abortion when they want it without having to faff about finding two doctors who agree to the procedure. Having to find two doctors just extends the unwanted pregnancy unnecessarily causing added stress. The right to decide what does and does not happen to one's own body is a fundamental issue of self-determination. I believe that women have the right to abortion at any point in their pregnancy; after all 91% of abortions in 2011 were before 13 weeks. There are very, very few abortions after the 24 week point and, no, the Sarah Catt case isn't representative of anything. She was denied an abortion and therefore chose to self-abort. Catt was also not convicted under the abortion laws; instead she was found guilty of an archaic law from the mid 19th century. Women are perfectly capable of deciding if and when they need an abortion without having to discuss it with two doctors; doctors who may or may not be anti-choicers.

The language around accessing abortion itself infantilises women. We can only have an abortion if someone else tells us we can. Not because we want one. Not because we need one. But, because someone else deems it medically necessary. Abortion should be available to women at any point in the pregnancy because the woman deems it necessary and not because someone else gave her permission to do so. I also dislike the rhetoric around "good" abortions for victims of rape versus "bad" abortions for women who have had the temerity to have consensual sex without wanting to get pregnant. Any attempts to create a hierarchy of acceptable reasons for women to have abortions just limits women's choices. It is the heart of woman-hating. This is without getting into the fact that many women have to access abortions for financial reasons. It's hardly a choice if you are having an abortion because you can not afford to feed a child. That is why we have a welfare state [or did before the ConDems destroyed it]. Limiting access to abortion gives others rights over women's bodies. It serves only as a punishment for the crime of being born with a vagina.

Whilst the anti-abortion movement in the US is far more frightening than in the UK, we are at a point where our reproductive rights are under attack. Jeremy Hunt, the new Secretary of State for Health, has voted to decrease the abortion limit from 24 to 12 weeks [and not actually explained how this will work whilst still requiring two doctors to sign off on the abortion]. Several members of the anti-abortion group Abort67 have been found not guilty of public order offences in Brighton despite their clear tactics of harassment and intimidation of women entering the BUPAS clinic. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children have been holding protests across the UK [and roundly counter-protested under the banner SPUC OFF]. This is nothing more than a War on Women.

Today, there are rolling protests across the UK demanding:

• The right to abortion on demand 
• The decriminalisation of abortion
• Access to abortion for women in Northern Ireland 
• The global decriminalisation of abortion

There are protests in: 

• Dundee from 2-4 pm on Reform Street
• Dublin: 2 pm on O'Connell Street
• London: 2 pm at Old Palace Yard opposite Parliament

I'm going to protest today. I hope other women join us.

* This bit is fairly obvious if you live in the UK so feel free to skip it.

** Access to abortion on demand needs to be accompanied by real sexual health education in schools, increased availability of birth control and a welfare state to assist those who choose to continue with their pregnancy.

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Sarah Catt: Reinforcing My Pro-Choice Stance

I've written and erased this blogpost several times now. I've followed the case in the media but I don't feel competent or qualified to comment. As Glosswitch said "I didn’t attend her trial, don’t live in her head and have no idea, in the grand scheme of things, how harshly she deserves to be judged." The case is disturbing and, frankly, asks more questions that I feel comfortable with trying to answer for myself. But, I do think 8 years is an incredibly harsh sentence. It may be that Catt is just a woman who didn't want to be pregnant but I suspect there is more to the case than has been released publicly [or assumed by the men moralising about her behaviour]. I doubt very much a man whose violence towards a pregnant partner resulted in the death of the fetus would have gotten 8 years. Hell, I doubt he would have gotten 6 months. 

I'm still struggling to adequately express my misgivings about this case but it has reinforced my belief that women should have the right to choose an abortion at any point without qualification or artificial hierarchy of "good" versus "bad" abortions. [I also believe that poverty should not be the reason a woman chooses to have an abortion. We should have a welfare state that would support her, regardless of that choice. Obviously, I'm away with the fairies on this one too]. Below is the information about a pro-choice rally on Saturday September 29th in London. Money permitting, I will be there to support women's right to choose so that no other woman ends up in prison for 8 years like Sarah Catt for aborting a pregnancy they did not want.

It's time for Action on Abortion!

Rights for Northern Ireland
Global decriminalisation of abortion
An end to harassment at abortion clinics

What? Demo for Action on Abortion

When? Saturday 29th September, 2.00 – 4.00 pm

Where? Old Palace Yard, opposite the Houses of Parliament

The summer is just about over and that means the next round of 'vigils' outside abortion clinics is almost upon us. This autumn, the start of 40 Days for Life's anti-choice campaign coincides with the events to mark the International Day for the Decriminalisation of Abortion – which we'll be marking with calls for rights for women in Northern Ireland and full decriminalisation in the UK. So now's the time to raise our voices on all these crucial issues.

What's the problem?

• Abortion in Northern Ireland is outlawed in almost all circumstances. Women who want to terminate a pregnancy must travel to the UK or abroad to access services at great emotional and financial cost.
  Women in Northern Ireland need abortion rights.
• Abortion law in England, Scotland and Wales is outdated. Although we have high quality abortion services, there is no 'right' to abortion. The consent of two doctors is required and each abortion must fit certain grounds.
  We need full decriminalisation and abortion on request.
• There are 20 million unsafe abortions around the world every year – most of them in countries where abortion is criminalised or restricted. At least 47,000 women will die as a result and thousands more will suffer ill health.
  We need worldwide decriminalisation of abortion & safe reproductive healthcare for all.
• Anti-choice campaigners are increasingly protesting outside abortion clinics – targeting individual women, causing distress and intimidation and sometimes even filming them.
  Women need privacy and safety when accessing abortions. The government must commit to stopping clinic harassment.

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Some Brilliant Feminist Bloggers Smashing The Patriarchy

I'm assuming that most people who read my blog have already read most of the blog posts I've collated below. After all, if you're reading my blog you're probably A) a feminist B) pro-choice C) have access to the internet. So, this is more about me not losing the links to these blogs than it is anything else. Unless you haven't read them, it which case you should. Huge triggering warnings though. If you do read, please be safe.

Mother Jones: Men Defining Rape History

Asylum for Assange. But What About the Women?

Sian and Crooked Rib: Thoughts on Sexual Assault and Naming Our Experiences
Feministing: Why Rape Exceptions and Abortion Stereotypes Are Harmful

Jezebel: 10 Things the GOP's Platform Hates About You

Femiste: The Republican Rape Problem

Glosswatch: My Bodily Integrity: It Was Never Yours To Grant

Glosswatch: Feminists! How About Shutting Up in the Name of Free Speech

Penny Red: It's Trigger Warning Week

Salt and Caramel: George Galloway, Assange and Legitimate Rape

New Statesman blog: George Galloway: It Was Only Bad Sexual Technique

Too Much To Say For Myself: Rape is Not

Frothy Dragon: Wikileaks, Assange and The Hero Worship Of A Man Accused of Rape

Hathor Legacy: Rape Culture and Male Entitlement to Sex

Too Much to Say For Myself: Assange and Feminism's So-Called Male Allies

On Consent:

Herbs and Hags: What's Wrong with Consent?

It's Mother's Work: When Can I Teach My Children About Consent?

UPDATE: Even More Brilliant Blogs and Media Reports:

Hathor Legacy: What About the Father's Rights?

The Nation: We Have Met Todd Akin and He Is Us

The Legitimate Children of Rape

Women Rise Up Now: Todd Akin Has Figured Out My Secret

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Marge Piercy's Right To Life

I've not read this poem before but it came up on my FB feed via Wipeout Misogyny. It is so incredibly beautiful and powerful.

Right To Life

A woman is not a pear tree thrusting her fruit in mindless fecundity into the world. Even pear trees bear heavily in one year and rest and grow the next. An orchid gone wild drops a few warm rotting fruit in the grass but the trees stretch high and wiry, gifting the birds forty feet up among inch long thorns broken atavistically from the smooth wood.
A woman is nota basket you place your buns in to keep them warm. Not a broodhen you can slip duck eggs under.

Not the purse holding the coins of your descendants till you spend them in wars.
Not a bank where your genes gather interest and interesting mutations in the tainted rain, any more than you are.
You plant corn and you harvest it to eat or sell. You put the lamb in the pasture to fatten and haul it into butcher for chops. You slice the mountain in two for a road and gouge the high plains for coal and the waters run muddy for miles and years.
Fish die but you do not call them yours unless you wished to eat them.
Now you legislate mineral rights in a woman.
You lay claim to her pastures for grazing, fields for growing babies like iceberg lettuce.
You value children so dearly that none ever go hungry, none weep with no one to tend them when mothers work, none lack fresh fruit, none chew lead or cough to death and your orphanages are empty. Every noon the best restaurants serve poor children steaks.

At this moment at nine o'clock a partera is performing a table top abortion on an unwed mother in Texas who can't get Medicaid any longer. In five days she will die of tetanus and her little daughter will cry and be taken away.
Next door a husband and wife are sticking pins in the son they did not want. They will explain for hours how wicked he is, how he wants discipline.
We are all born of woman, in the rose of the womb we suckled our mother's blood and every baby born has a right to love like a seedling to sun.
Every baby born unloved, unwanted, is a bill that will come due in twenty years with interest, an anger that must find a target, a pain that will beget pain.
A decade downstream a child screams, a woman falls, a synagogue is torched, a firing squad is summoned, a button is pushed and the world burns.
I will choose what enters me, what becomesof my flesh. Without choice, no politics, no ethics lives.
I am not your cornfield, not your uranium mine, not your calf for fattening, not your cow for milking. You may not use me as your factory.

Priests and legislators do not hold shares in my womb or my mind.

This is my body. If I give it to you I want it back. My life is a non-negotiable demand.

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Child maintenance: Or, Why You Shouldn't Stick Your Cock in a Woman if You Aren't Prepared to be a Father

There is no birth control which is 100% effective. Most women know that every time they have PIV, they are risking pregnancy. We have sex because we enjoy it; despite the knowledge of all the possible lifetime consequences. We know the difficulties of choosing whether or not continue the pregnancy. We know that many women do not have a choice; whether it is because there is no access to abortion in their area or if poverty will force a "choice" on them. We know what pregnancy can do to our bodies in a "normal healthy" pregnancy; never mind one in which we could potentially have SPD, anaemia, gestational diabetes, hyperemesis, or pre-eclampsia. We know the all the possible consequences of giving birth; vaginally or via caesarian. We know the possibilities of post-natal depression, tearing and even the fact that domestic violence frequently starts or gets more severe during pregnancy. We know the statistics because we know the realities. We see them every day in our families and our friends. 

The real question is why do so many men (and their handmaidens) assume that men should face no consequences for fathering a child? And, why does the government support the right of these losers to fuck women with impunity whilst slut-shaming those women for having sex? Why are women the only ones who have to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions? Why does the government think it should punish some women for withholding contact from abusive men without punishing those same men for the abuse or their failure to pay maintenance? Why do men get to do whatever they want whenever they want with no legal or moral requirement for them to act like an adult?

Here's the thing: I think withholding maintenance is child abuse. If you help create a child, then you damn well better financially support them. Men who withhold maintenance to punish the mother are committing child abuse. Failure to support your child is neglect and should be legally recognised as such. If the primary carer, otherwise known as the mother, could go to prison for child neglect for failing to adequately feed and clothe their child, then why shouldn't the erstwhile "father"? These men aren't "good fathers" and the pretence that they are actively harms children. Children need good, kind men in their lives. They don't need abusive arseholes who prioritise fancy cars and booze above the basic needs of their children.

And, yeah, I think men who don't bother to financially support their child, shouldn't be allowed access. Deliberately withholding support should be a legally valid reason to deny contact. Men who use access to control their ex-partners should be prohibited from contact. Men who commit domestic violence against their partners shouldn't be allowed contact with their children. If you assault your partner, then you can't ever be a good father. Good fathers are not abusive. Children deserve the right to be raised in a happy and secure home; not one in which their "father" gets to dictate everything that happens just because he has a penis.

Failing to support your children means you aren't a real man. You deserve to be named and shamed. You are responsible for the feminisation of poverty.

You are the reason our old government had to subsidise single mothers through tax credits and income support. You are the reason that these same women will be pushed further into poverty by our current government of misogynistic arsehats. These are the people who are destroying our families; not single mothers who are desperately trying to feed and clothe their children whilst dealing with abusive men and a society that doesn't think men should be held responsible for anything. Ever.

Canada has a much better track record with child maintenance than the UK. The assumption there is that men should pay to support their children in order to prevent women's dependence on the welfare state. Perhaps our current government of nincompoops should have looked into that instead of slashing the welfare budget creating a whole new generation of vulnerable children being raised in poverty. These are the consequences for failure to pay in Canada

• Make deductions from wages (maximum of 40% gross wage); 
• MEP can take money payable to the debtor from bank accounts, mutual funds, rent or contract fees; 
• Garnish income tax refunds, GST rebates, Canada Pension Plan income, and Employment Insurance payments; 
• The debtor may be prevented from transferring any property he or she wishes to sell, and allows MEP to seize assets including vehicles, shares and bonds; 
• The debtor may have his or her driver’s licence, registration, licence plates, or abstracts restricted or suspended; 
• Recreational licences for fishing and hunting may be restricted; 
• MEP may cancel current driver’s licences for account more than 60 days in late payments; 
• Passports can be revoked; 
• MEP may prevent an owner from re-mortgaging or selling real estate without first making payments. In some cases MEP may force sale of real estate; 
• Failure to make child support payments may be registered as bad debt and affect credit; 
• If assets are being kept in the name of a company, MEP can apply for a court order allowing the company’s assets to be used to pay for the debt; 
• MEP may seize assets the debtor tries to sell; and/or 
• If assets are being put in someone else’s name to avoid collection, MEP can apply for a court order allowing for their seizure 

It's easily assessed via personal income tax which is filed yearly. Yes, there are real holes in the system and some men do get away with child financial neglect but, at least, Canada recognises that men who refuse to support their children are committing a crime which has long-term consequences for those children. The UK needs to take a real stand against abusive men and start forcing men to take responsibility for where they decide to ejaculate.

Gingerbread Campaign on CSA

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Petition Round-Up: 2.0

These are links to petitions I have written about on my blog in the past few months: 


Scottish Government Concerning Cuts to Charities working on VAW 


Action Aid Petition to the UK Government Concerning the Family Planning Summit


Women's Media Project: Sexualisation is Silencing


Save the Women's Library


Stop the Sexualisation of Women in the Press 


Protecting the Funding for NCT Practitioners


Stop Cutting Funding to Domestic Violence Resources


Abortion Reform: Scrap the Requirement for a Second Doctor's Signature


Ban Airbrushing of all Images in the Media Aimed at Children

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Women Power: Family Planning Saves Lives

The lack of access women, all over the world, have to birth control and abortion directly impacts on family and community structures. Where there is little or no access, there is an increase in maternal and infant mortality with the practise of unsafe abortions, occasionally infanticide, or the birth of unwanted children [particularly due to economics] causing untold problems in communities. There are cultural prohibitions against some forms of birth control but the lack of access to basic medical care [or even clean water] means that too many women are suffering from unwanted pregnancies and too many children are being born into families that can not support them. This is without getting into the issue of women being allowed to control what happens to their own bodies by having the power to control whether or not they conceive without being coerced via government policy or economics. Even ignoring the US governments cowardly policy, during the Bush administration, of not funding any family planning clinic that mentioned abortion, the impact on women's lives has been horrendous.

There have been several high profile campaigns bringing media and world attention to this issue; notably the White Ribbon Alliance on Maternal Mortality whose global patron is Sarah Brown. Their information page contains numerous links to important research into maternal mortality, including the research into feeding infants during emergencies; a piece of information that the large multi-national corporations like Nestle like to pretend doesn't exist. It might sound counter-intuitive but donations of formula and baby-food in disaster zones, particularly where access to clean water is non-existant, lead to increases in infant mortality. It is much safer for infants to be breastfed and any woman who has previously lactated can feed an infant as the female body is designed to respond to the nutritional needs of an infant. The White Ribbon Alliance works in partnership with other organisations in a variety of nations to advocate for safe motherhood as a basic human right.

The newest campaign on safe motherhood and reproductive rights kicked off with the International Reporting Project sending 11 bloggers to Kenya to report on reproductive health and population issues. The bloggers, including the very lovely Lynn Schreiber, spent the first day in Kibera, one of the largest slums in East Africa where population estimates range up to 3 million [although this generally considered too high]. This is part of the lead-up to The London Summit on Family Planning held jointly by the Gates Foundation and the UK government in July [with any luck Melinda Gates will shame Cameron into at least pretending to be human].

There are some obvious questions which need to raised when dealing with the issue of family planning, particularly in relation to issues of coercion and the, quite violent, history of population control polices such as those enacted in Nazi Germany and China not to mention places like California which had enforced sterilisation programs for those deemed unfit. Dorothy Roberts' Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty lists some of the coercive policies enacted in the US to prevent poor African-Americans from having children. It included the use of mandatory birth control in New Jersey in order to receive public benefits. In the 1990s. We may think of Nazi Germany and China when thinking of coercive population control but they are by no means the only guilty party and it isn't "history". Coercive reproductive measures happen everyday anywhere that access to birth control, abortion and medical facilities are not present [and this is without getting into the issue of rape and sexual violence which severely impact on women's health, particularly in war and disaster zones].

This is why I was glad to see that Amnesty International, the Centre for Reproductive Rights, Action Aid and dozens of other human rights organisations, academics and women's rights activists have signed this declaration:

We, civil society organizations working to promote women’s and young people’s human rights, call on world leaders on the eve of the “Family Planning Summit”, hosted by the UK Government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to ensure that sexual and reproductive health and rights are at the centre of all efforts to meet reproductive health needs, including family planning. Contraceptive information and services – “family planning” – form an essential part of the health services that women need throughout their lives. Any steps to increase demand for contraceptives must actively support efforts to improve comprehensive and integrated sexual and reproductive health.  

Contraceptives must be provided through primary healthcare, with full regard for women’s human rights and the specific needs of young and unmarried women and other groups. Our experience, built over decades of work around the world, has taught us that the failure to take actions guided by women’s human rights – to health, to life, to live free from discrimination among others – can have devastating consequences. Policies that accept or tacitly condone forced sterilization, the coercive provision of contraceptives, and the denial of essential services to the young, poor and marginalized women that need them every day have violated, and continue to violate, women’s human rights. 

Nearly twenty years ago, governments at the International Conference on Population and Development agreed that respect for women’s reproductive autonomy is the cornerstone of population policy. Any return to coercive family planning programs where quality of care and informed consent are ignored would be both shocking and retrograde. The Family Planning Summit must ensure that the clocks are not put back on women’s human rights: women’s autonomy and agency to decide freely on matters related to sexual and reproductive health without any discrimination, coercion or violence must be protected under all circumstances. ...

Save the Children are also involved in the Family Planning Summit and have started a petition requesting that the British government make a firm commitment to the issue of family planning and safe motherhood. Please sign this petition to help women around the world give birth and raise their children with access to real health care [and education].

Free access to birth control, family planning and safe motherhood should be a basic human right with every woman having the control over her own body and her own family. Anything less is nothing more than a return to the normal coercive practises but this time tied up in a different fancy box with a UN ribbon on top.

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Loving the NHS: Why Privatisation Kills

Someone on Twitter linked to this document Dying for Coverage: The Deadly Consequences of Being Uninsured by Families USA. And, I read it. And, I was horrified. One of the statistics quoted is that more people in California in 2010 died because of a lack of health insurance than in car accidents. Now, I'm not unfamiliar with the shite which passes as the US healthcare system. You can't grow up in Canada in a place which only had American TV channels accessible or attend uni in a border town without getting at least a passing understanding of its all-round crapness. But, the idea that more people die from lack of adequate healthcare than in car accidents [with the sheer number of stupid people who are apparently legally entitled to drive; some as young as 15] is just jaw-dropping.

Living on the border with the US, you see lots of healthcare tourists. Many are elderly people on pensions travelling several days on buses in order to buy their prescription medications for pretty basic conditions like asthma and diabetes [and I say basic because the treatments like ventolin have been on the market for years and cost very little in Canada or the UK]. The use of the term "tourism" is just farcical. Travelling 4 days on a bus when you're 75 to get treatment for diabetes is not the sign of a civilised nation. And, it's hardly surprising that the states with the highest amount of deaths due to lack of health insurance are the states with the largest populations of Hispanics, African-Americans and other ethnic minorities. Nothing says racism quite like poor access to healthcare. Nothing says racism quite like institutionalised and systemic murder through lack of basic healthcare. And, there can be no debate on this. A child who dies of cancer because they can't afford the treatment isn't dying because of cancer. They are being murdered by a society that doesn't give a shit.

The Affordable Care Act comes into effect in 2014. It still won't guarantee basic health insurance for every person living in the US and that's only if the evil Republicans don't get it vetoed [and anyone who participates in that should be going straight to hell]. This bill still doesn't cover universal access to birth control, abortion or maternity services. The US has one of the highest rates of maternal death in "Western-Industrialised" economies. The misogyny inherent in killing women through lack of access to these services is astronomical.

 I am proud to live in a country which has free healthcare at the point of service. Where a child with cancer is treated at ANY hospital, regardless of their insurance. Where abortion and birth control are considered human rights. Where prescription medications are available for all and not just those lucky enough to be wealthy.

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The Petition Round-Up Redux

The monthly petition round-up:

Women's Media Centre: Sexualisation is Silencing Petition

Facebook Must Remove Pages which Promote or Encourage Sexual Violence

Greek Minister: Stop the Forced Testing and Outing of HIV positive Prostitutes.

Save the Women's Library

Stop the Sexualisation of Women in the Press

Protect the Funding for NCT Practitioners

Stop Cutting Funds to Domestic Violence Services

Scrapping the Requirement for a Second Doctor's Signature for Abortion

Ban All Airbrushed Advertising Aimed at Children

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#RadFem2012

I've been writing this blogpost for a few days now and, as ever, I'm behind the times since Sheila Jeffreys has now been banned from the conference venue for "promoting hatred". I find this incredibly disappointing and it makes me so very angry that women's voices are once again being silenced because of a concerted attack by a group of activists who use shameful bullying tacts to silence any opposition. The Guardian article is here.

This is my post, not quite finished [or edited] since I meant it for tomorrow but I would rather it be read now:

I've been trying to write this blogpost since the vitriol against #RadFem2012 started trending on twitter. I've been horrified by the level of violence and hate speech that has accompanied the announcement of the Radical Feminist conference in London. This might reflect entirely who I follow on Twitter and Facebook, but the vast majority of insults, especially those which threaten violence, have been by a few transactivists against radical feminists. After all, I didn't see anyone who self-identified as Radical Feminist suggesting that people who disagreed with them were "scum" like those Transactivists using the hashtag: #radscum2012. I've not seen any Radical Feminsts using words like "cunt" to dismiss and belittle Transactivists. There is even a Resist RadFem2012 blog set-up. I won't be attending #RadFem2012 this summer but that's for financial reasons and not because I don't want to be there. I missed the Go Feminism conference in February for the same reason. If I had the financial resources, I would spend my life traipsing up and down the UK on a train attending Feminist conferences and festivals. Being surrounded by Feminists of all persuasions is a beautiful thing; even if we don't agree on all points just being with people who are critical of our capitalist-patriarchy is inspiring.

I am, however, really struggling to understand the vitriol targeting the Radical Feminist conference. I genuinely do not see why people are so angry about one conference for women-born only. It is not like there is a dearth of Feminist conferences and activities in the UK right now. If anything, we are at the beginning of a major Feminist activist revival. There should be opportunities for everyone to participate in Feminist activism without denigrating or deriding attempts by others to engage in activism and consciousness-raising.

Intersectionality:

There are many forms of oppression and discrimination that women born women have to deal with which is different from the discrimination faced by Transgender people. I think it would be equally disrespectful for me to assert my "right" to attend a conference which is for transgender women only. Indeed, the Philadelphia Trans-Health conference includes closed sessions for Transgendered people only. I think it is inhumane and utterly arrogant for me to assume that I should be allowed into this space because there are issues of discrimination faced by transgendered people that I, as a FAAB, have never experienced and do not have the ability to offer anything constructive other than sympathy. Transgender people don't need a straight, FAAB sitting in the corner offering sympathy. They need a space where they can discuss their lived experiences without worrying about whether or not an audience is present [or worrying if the audience is sympathetic] just like FAAB deserve.

It is as equally disrespectful for me to assert my "right" to attend a conference for Black Feminist women-only based on an assumption of "shared experience" because of our biological sex. Or, and this term sets my teeth on edge, my "right" to attend a Black-women only event in order to "educate" myself about the specific structural oppression faced by Black women due to misogyny and racism. If I were truly interested in "educating" myself about the multiple oppressions experienced by "Othered" women, I would read books, articles and, increasingly, blogs written by these women. Hell, Twitter and Facebook offer opportunities to learn without being rude. Demanding access to their space would be asserting a White Privilege that I do not deserve. Black women have the personal need and the political right to close their space to white women. I have neither the personal need nor the political right to demand access to that space.

Transgender people do experience serious oppression and discrimination in our capitalist-Patriarchy. Anyone suggesting differently is either deliberately minimising the level of sexual violence and harassment transgendered people receive or has not yet considered it. I have never heard a Feminist argue that Transgender people do not experience violence [sexual and otherwise]. I have heard Feminists argue that the violence experienced by Transgendered people originates in the same Patriarchal constructs as misogyny BUT that the violence and oppression of women is both experientially and structurally different. That is not to say that one individual has it "worse" than another or that the specific experience of one individual can be used as representative of all, whether they be women or transgender but, rather that, the specific oppressions experienced by FAAB is qualitatively different to that experienced by transgendered people. It is also infinitely more likely for women to experience gender-based violence.

FAAB should also have the right to get together to support, mourn and celebrate their experiences of oppression because of misogyny. FAAB should be allowed to discuss issues like amenorrhea, pregnancy, childbirth, infertility, abortion, sexual harassment, domestic violence, rape and other sex-based socially constructed forms of discrimination without an audience. Women, as a sex, are entitled to a safe space to talk. Denying women the right to do so is basic misogynistic oppression. This doesn't mean that there aren't areas of Feminism where women and transgender people can't come together to engage in activism. It just means it doesn't have to be every time. To quote Beachcomber on MN: "This is a political issue, an issue of social groups and hierarchy - it is not an issue of individual circumstance or reality". Everyone is entitled to a space in which to contemplate and critique their experiences within their own social group.

Personal Reflections:

I suppose its important here to note where I started my journey as a feminist. I grew up in an area of Canada with a very high population of First Nations people. Whilst I can write a catalogue of the institutionalised sexism and misogyny I experienced, it is nothing like the experience of First Nations women who suffered under the dual oppressions of racism and misogyny. My statistical risk of being rape was exponentially smaller than that of First Nations women; as was my statistical chance of being a victim of gendered murder. I experienced similar "smaller" sexual assaults to First Nations women but, again, not in the numbers experienced by First Nations women. The treatment of First Nations women in Canada is a national disgrace that is frequently elided from the public sphere. My first feminist "activism" was a protest against the public support a white rapist received because his victim had to be "lying" because she was First Nations and therefore supposedly sexually available to all white men.

I am also disabled but I wasn't born disabled. Nor do I have a disability which is "visible". I have never been stared at or insulted in the street for looking "different". I can "pass" as non-disabled. I've never struggled on the London Underground [except when carrying heavy luggage]. I've never had to stand at a bus stop and watch a bus driver refuse to allow me on because I am in a wheelchair. These oppressions and discriminatory practises are different and everyone should have the right to gather to discuss issues personal to them without having to worry about whether or not they will be attacked for them.

Constructing Gender:

I also have both white privilege and class privilege. Neither of these negate my oppression as a woman. They do make more privileged than Black women and poor women. As a feminist, I want to see the eradication of the gender binary hierarchy and the destruction of the systemic and institutionalised oppression of women in the capitalist-patriarchy. I believe that sex is biology but gender is a social construct designed to oppress women. Gender can be "performed" but it is inherently a destructive and reductive social construct. Performing it only serves to reinforce that destructive and reductive social construct and further oppress women. I think it is telling that for MtF transgender people in the UK to be allowed surgery on the NHS, they have to "live" for two years performing femininity: not gender but femininity by wearing dresses, make up and high heels. If this were how women were identified, I would know very few FAAB who would pass. I do not believe women will ever be "free" until we have destroyed the Patriarchy which also requires destroying capitalism. The Patriarchy predates capitalism but it now functions in symbiosis with capitalism so that we can not destroy one without the other. The capitalist-Patriarchy is harmful for everyone. Yes, there is an intersectionality of oppressions that privilege certain groups of women over other women [and over other men in terms of poverty]. I do not understand how we can destroy the Patriarchy if we are reinforcing the gender binary hierarchy.

The Right to Protest?

I am quite concerned about the threats of intimidation and violence being levied at the women who will be attending the Radical Feminist conference; particularly the not-quite-ironic threats by certain transactivists using the same language of oppression as MRAs. They are agitating for protests outside the conference which are reminiscent of those held by anti-choice arseholes outside abortion clinics. I can not believe people who self-identify as Feminists don't see how hypocritical that stance is. I remember attending a Holocaust Memorial Day viewing of the film The Pianist which ended in with a question and answer session with Holocaust survivors derailed by Palestinian activists. Whilst I support the aims of Palestinian activists in fighting the human rights violations committed by the Israeli government, targeting vulnerable, elderly Holocaust survivors was rude, mean-spirited and unlikely to convert me to their cause. I feel the same about those specific Transactivists threatening and intimidating women wanting to attend this Radical Feminist conference. It only serves to alienate me from their cause.

I also think its quite problematic to be protesting outside an event that will be attended by vulnerable women; particularly women who have experienced male violence within their personal relationships or experienced violence as prostituted women. Agitating outside a venue is very different to peaceful protest. Whilst I'm not entirely fond of the suggestion that people will be outside picketing with signs, the thought that people will be deliberately attending to shout abuse and denigrate the women attending makes me really quite sad. Have we genuinely got to the point where a group of women can't get together to discuss issues relevant to them without being abused or insulted?

In many ways, this feels like the same debate around Reclaim the Night when men, who weren't going to attend anyways, get all uppity about not being allowed to attend. Or, what annoys me even more, men are then invited to attend RTN's which immediately excludes vulnerable women and then the men don't bother to show up. I have to wonder how much of the hate speech on Twitter under the #radscum2012 and #radfem2012 hashtags are genuinely by people interested in radical feminism and transgender rights and how many are only using it as a way of unleashing their bigotry. This is the kind of abuse radical feminists receive via their blogs and twitter. The number of times "cunt" is used as an insult is telling.

I think it's worth noting that this conference is predicated on a number of issues which MRAs find problematic. It takes as its starting point the theory that the "sex industry" is inherently misogynistic and that the idea of "sex-positive" feminism is an anachronism which privileges male sexuality and reduces women only to objects. It assumes that porn is violent women-hating and that prostitution amounts to nothing more than the rape of vulnerable women.

In trying to write this, I've been reading a lot of blogs. These are a selection of some I've been reading over the past week:

Radical Pro-Feminist

Gender Trender

Feminist Perspectives on Trans Issues

Femonade

Feministing

F-Word

How Trans Women Challenge Feminism

CherryBlossomLife

Mumsnet Thread

Update with More Resources:

Fact Check Me on Cotton Ceilings

Pleasure and Possibilities Workshop

Gender Trender

Dinosaurs and Janice Raymond

Born Genderless

Resist RadFem

Building Bridges

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