“When I was doing my residency in New York, a patient came in 18 weeks pregnant and very, very sick. The only way to save her was to terminate the pregnancy. We were in a Catholic hospital … I vividly recall my director of obstetrics and the chairman arguing with the nuns. They said, “Well, the baby’s only 18 weeks, it’s going to die.” They felt very strongly that we could not do anything, but they would be okay with us transferring her to get care elsewhere. The director rode with the patient in the ambulance because he was afraid that she would have seizures. She was in her early 20s, and she already had a kid. That really got to me. How could we let this mom die and leave her child behind when we have the means to take care of her? I said to myself: “I never want my hands tied behind my back like that again.” I used to travel; these days I’m mostly in Georgia and I’m a backup physician in Alabama. In Alabama, my patients tend to be poor and young. The youngest was barely 12. She went to play with a classmate, and there were older boys over … When her guardians brought her in, I was reluctant to take care of her in an outpatient setting because we couldn’t sedate her. I went to the local hospital and said, “She’s just a baby. She’s suffered enough. Please, can we put her to sleep.” Everybody was onboard. Things have changed so much I don’t know if I would be able to get away with that now. The most frustrating thing for me, especially in the Southeast, is seeing so many women who are not empowered to take care of themselves. Especially women of color. You hear things like “I was told I’m too young for an IUD” when we know that’s not true. They need to know what their options are. I’m Haitian-American, and the part of me that is extremely cynical wants to say, Well, it’s because these are black women. But I really think it’s a matter of poverty. It just so happens that the face of poverty may be black. A few weeks ago, a woman came in for a medical abortion. As she was about to take the pill, she asked, “Do you think God hates me?” And I said, “No, he doesn’t hate you.” She said to me: “I tried so hard not to get pregnant. I told my boyfriend to use a condom, but he refused and forced himself on me.” If you overturn Roe v. Wade, what’s going to happen is we’ll go back to the way it was before. Every state for themselves. And best believe that the conservative states are going to try to outdo each other. Poor women will suffer. Poor women will die. There’s a generation of abortion providers who are more willing to be vocal about the impact of these different legislative measures. I tell my learners, “I don’t expect you to provide abortion care, but I want you to support your co-worker if they say, ‘Hey, we need a piece of legislation.’ I want you to stand behind us. But most importantly, I want you to be able to counsel and educate your patient in a way that respects her decision.” If I can train 500 providers who are compassionate and willing to respect and help their patients, I’ve done my job.”
I want to be really clear about something: Planned Parenthood has done more to prevent abortion than the pro-life movement ever has.
Yup, preventing abortion by giving abortions. Makes sense!
No you fucking crusty nutsack giving people the education and the tools to not become pregnant in the first fucking place
One of my Christian friends made a Facebook post about how PP gave her tons of resources when she was trying to get pregnant and people were actually genuinely shocked that they provided such resources; they had fully bought into the idea that PP is just an “abortion factory”. The misinformation that’s been spread about PP is unreal.
gosh it’s almost like Planned Parenthood will help you plan for parenthood
pro life ppl: we wanna protect lives also pro life ppl: let’s rape and ruin a woman’s life just bc of her profession
Within weeks, though, Hales began to see her attacker’s face in the crowd of protesters outside the Raleigh clinic. At first, she thought she was being paranoid. But then, she says, the protesters began to yell things they hadn’t yelled before, echoing words said to her during the assault.
“The protesters outside started calling me a jezebel a lot more,” Hales said. “And I got letters in the mail saying that I deserved it.”
They also said things they could have known only from talking to her attacker or seeing her rape kit. Hales has a tattoo of a serotonin molecule on her left rib and one day, a protester asked what molecule her tattoo was of.
Hales received a barrage of anonymous text messages, phone calls, and voicemails. She’d pick up the phone and hear someone breathing heavily. She’d get voicemails that said, “Do you remember it?” Some days, she received hundreds of blank text messages. One night while at dinner with friends, she got a text from an unknown number that said, “That shirt looks pretty on you.”
This wasn’t a “lone wolf” – this was a fully accepted member of the local “pro-life” community and instead of being horrified or disgusted by his actions they cheered him on and celebrated what he did.
Let that sink in: these “protesters” are supporting this rapist. They know the graphic details of the rape and they are giddy about being able to traumatize her further through stalking and harassment.
Well, misogyny is the driving force behind the “pro-life” movement. And to anyone who wants to say “but a lot of women are pro-life”—so? Systemic misogyny involves a contrast between “bad” women and “good” women, and the “good” women are the ones who buy into the system and help enforce the sanctions it imposes on “bad” women. Women slut-shame other women; women perpetuate the fetishization and essentialization of motherhood and shame other women for failing to live up to its impossible standards. Women can absolutely be misogynistic and suffer no cognitive dissonance because they assume that they are among “the good ones,” the ones rewarded by the system, and it is only the bad women who step out of their place whom they despise.
This woman is named June Ayres and she has owned and operated Reproductive Health Services, which is currently the only clinic in Montgomery, Alabama, for about 30 years. May I suggest that you donate the price of that beer to The Linda D Foundation, which helps Alabama women afford reproductive services including birth control, emergency contraception, and abortion services? http://alabamareproductiverightsadvocates.com/thelindadfoundation/
This gifset is from an incredible documentary called Trapped. You can find or organize a screening or stream it for free here: http://www.trappeddocumentary.com/
It’s seriously an amazing movie about some amazing people.
This woman’s casual level of “Fuck You” herosim is exactly what I aspire to be in life.
This Tuesday, The Satanic Temple will be arguing their case in front of the Missouri Supreme Court after convincing an appeals court that the state’s mandatory 72-hour waiting period before having an abortion violates their religious freedom.
The Temple is taking up the case of a member they refer to as “Mary Doe,” who claims the law goes against her religious beliefs. The woman contends that back in May of 2015, she was forced to view an ultrasound of her fetus and required to read a booklet that stated life “begins at conception.”
All of this was forced upon her despite the fact that she “adheres to principles of the Satanic temple and has sincerely held religious beliefs different from the information in the informed consent booklet,” according to her case summary.
“Specifically, her letter advised she has deeply held religious beliefs that a nonviable fetus is not a separate human being but is part of her body and that abortion of a nonviable fetus does not terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being,” the case summary stated according to NBC News.
The Satanic Temple’s Jex Blackmore says Mary Doe’s religious freedom is being trampled upon.
“The State has essentially established a religious indoctrination program intended to push a single ideological viewpoint,” Blackmore said in a statement. “The law is intended to punish women who disagree with this opinion.”
“Missouri’s state-mandated informed consent booklets explicitly say that life begins at conception, which is a nonmedical religious viewpoint that many people disagree with,” his statement continued. “Forcing women to read this information and then wait 72-hours to consider the State’s opinion is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause.”
Although the state disagreed with the Temple’s assessment, a Missouri appeals court found merit in the Temple’s argument and agreed to let the case go the Missouri Supreme Court and even commented on the urgency of the case’s constitutional implications.
*starts handing out bags of popcorn* Oooooh, this gonna eat up the pro-lifers…
Satanists hold the line
There was an update:
Update, 1/25/18: A local CBS affiliate is reporting that the Temple has prevailed in its showdown with the state of Missouri over its abortion restrictions.
According to 9News, Missouri’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer declared ultrasounds are not required to obtain an abortion in the state.
Dr. Willie Parker, who is trained as a gynecologist and OBGYN, is a hero for the pro-choice movement because he’s honest about the undiscussed aspects of getting (or not getting) an abortion. Watch how he gives a consultation.
That last statement about regret is so important, because so many people don’t understand what it is or what causes it. Anti-choicers exploit this by manipulating pregnant people and creating doubt, which only increases the likelihood of regret, no matter what decision the pregnant person makes. You know what is best for you, even if it takes some time to figure it out.
“My body, my choice” only makes sense when someone else’s life isn’t at stake.
Fun fact: If my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood. Yes, even to save the life of a fully grown person, it would be ILLEGAL to FORCE me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.
See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this….cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon.
Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy.
To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died.
You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies.
reblogging for commentary
But, assuming the mother wasn’t raped, the choice to HAVE a baby and risk sacrificing their “bodily autonomy” is a choice that the mother made. YOu don’t have to have sex with someone. Cases of rape aside, it isn’t ethical to say abortion is justified. The unborn baby has rights, too.
First point: Bodily autonomy can be preserved, even if another life is dependent on it. See again the example about the blood donation.
And here’s another point: When you say that “rape is the exception” you betray something FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN about your own argument.
Because a fetus produced from sexual assault is biologically NO DIFFERENT than a fetus produced from consensual sex. No difference at all.
If one is alive, so is the other. If one is a person, so is the other. If one has a soul, then so does the other. If one is a little blessing that happened for a reason and must be protected, then so is the other.
When you say that “Rape is the exception” what you betray is this: It isn’t about a life. This isn’t about the little soul sitting inside some person’s womb, because if it was you wouldn’t care about HOW it got there, only that it is a little life that needs protecting.
When you say “rape is the exception” what you say is this: You are treating pregnancy as a punishment. You are PUNISHING people who have had CONSENSUAL SEX but don’t want to go through a pregnancy. People who DARED to have consensual sex without the goal of procreation in mind, and this is their “consequence.“
And that is gross.
Boom.
Reminder that sex isn’t something that deserves a punishment (especially when that punishment will permanently change your body and life) and that believing people should have rights to their own body does not make you a murderer. This has been a PSA
Loki is the Philosopher King 