Blog for Choice 2013: Tufts OB/GYN Department Celebrations

The Tufts OB/GYN Department's celebratory uterus-shaped cake in honor of the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Sent to us by one of their residents. 

Blog for Choice 2013: To all the ladies...

Thomas Dohle, Guest Blogger (Boston University School of Medicine, '16, Medical Students for Choice)
This post is part of Blog for Choice 2013, launched by Boston Students for Sexual and Reproductive Justice (BSSRJ)

To all the ladies out there on this 40th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade:

I want you to know that not all men look down on you for considering or having an abortion, for using Plan B when plan A failed, for taking a handful of condoms from the bowl on the bar, or for visiting a family planning doctor at Planned Parenthood. Not all men think that you are a slut or a whore or a tramp if you have multiple sexual partners. Not all men participate in the double standard.

Some of us applaud you for being brave and grasping that autonomy that modern medicine allows. Some of us cheer you on for your decision to admit that you are not mature enough or financially stable enough or just plain not ready to be a mother. Some of us believe that sexual expression is a healthy part of humanity, regardless of your gender. 

Some of us are infuriated at the attempts by the religious right and the GOP to limit your liberties. Some of us are shaking our fists at the ignorant protestors standing outside abortion clinics. Some of us are angered by the misinformation being spread. Some of us mobilized to keep more of those people from being voted into elective office.

Some of us believe in science and medicine. Some of us shape our politics and virtues around human compassion and the belief that every human life is equal. Some of us don't grasp one or two lines of antiquated literature and use it to try to control you.

Some of us realize that gender equality is not possible without reproductive autonomy. Some of us are aware that women can become enslaved by unwanted pregnancy, forced or arranged marriage, rape, and incest. Some of us are willing to proudly walk into that clinic with you, arm in arm, and stare down the faces of hatred that oppose you.

Some of us are ready to stand next to our friends, sisters, and mothers.

Not all men look down on you. And I'm proud to say that I'm one of them.

Blog for Choice 2013: Roe is necessary, but not sufficient

Gillian Stoddard Leatherberry, Guest Blogger (Boston University School of Law '15, Law Students for Reproductive Justice)

This post is part of Blog for Choice, launched by Boston Students for Sexual and Reproductive Justice (BSSRJ).

You’ve probably heard about Savita. She recently died of septic shock in Ireland after physicians refused to perform life-saving surgery that may have saved Savita, but would have aborted her fetus. Many women world-wide, like Savita, aren’t lucky enough to have access to legal abortion. Roe means that Savita might have been saved if she had been in the United States when she was in need of life-saving surgery. 

To me, Roe means to me that some women have access to meaningful abortion rights, but this choice is not accessible to everyone , and it doesn’t come without judgment. Contemporary feminists and young women are known for not appreciating our freedom to use contraception and choose abortion. I appreciate it, but I am not satisfied with it alone. One in three women have an abortion in her lifetime. 

Why does shame and judgment still surround this medical procedure?

Before coming to law school, I volunteered as a clinic escort. The following examples are real scenarios that evidence the success and also the limits of Roe:

•  Walking into the family planning clinic, one clinic patron was approached by anti-choice protesters who asked her why she is giving up her baby and did she know she was killing an innocent life? The patron later told me that that she was outraged by the protesters because her teenage daughter was in the car – her teenage daughter whom the clinic patron had told she had cysts, not that she was at the clinic for an abortion procedure.  Roe means that this woman can have an abortion, but doesn’t mean that her daughter won’t face the same shame if she ever needs an abortion  
• Many women drive long distances or from out of state to come into abortion clinics. This is probably because most counties in the United States have no access to a family planning clinic. Roe means that women are able to access an abortion symbolically, but not before women must take off work, find a car, and find money to drive to the clinic and have an abortion procedure.
• A young woman who was protesting outside the clinic one day yelled at me, “Don’t you know that having a baby is free?” Roe means that clinic patients can have abortions, but Roe cannot explain to this young woman why having a child and that child’s monetary, emotional and other costs are by no definition “free.”

While Roe legalizes abortion, full access to the procedure and its acceptance aren’t things that the Supreme Court decision created. On this 40^th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision, abortion rights supporters should be reminded that Roe is necessary to abortion rights, but not sufficient in creating choice for all women.

Blog for Choice 2013: Generations of Choices

Anonymous Guest Blogger (Harvard Law School, Law Students for Reproductive Justice) 
This post is part of Blog for Choice 2013, launched by Boston Students for Sexual and Reproductive Justice (BSSRJ).

I have been a Reproductive Justice activist since high school. In fact for someone who has never been pregnant, it’s sometimes funny to me how much my life revolves around others’ pregnancies and abortions. One of the odd things that comes with this work is being part of or learning about others’ private medical decisions – both on the abortion hotline I volunteered for, and because of people’s tendencies to share their own abortion, contraception, or pregnancy secrets with me. This includes my own family.

When I was 16 I helped organize a bus from New Jersey down to the March for Women’s Lives in DC. While my friends and I were coloring in our homemade signs, my grandmother called me up to the front of the bus where she was sitting.  She sat me on her lap, and began to tell me about the moment she found herself pregnant with my mother. At 20, she was newly married with few economic resources, and had a new baby, who was born premature after a pregnancy with several serious complications. She was terrified and felt unprepared to handle another pregnancy. The year was 1958, so with abortion illegal, she and my grandfather conspired with her parents to find a doctor who would give her an abortion in the hospital under the guise of a D and C (by the time they were able to schedule the procedure and wait for the date, my grandmother found her second pregnancy much easier than the first. So they did not go through with it, and my mother was born).

Eight years later, I called my mom on my way home from escorting at the Planned Parenthood down the street. I laughed to her, “This protestor kept asking me how I’d feel if my mother aborted me and to be thankful my mother that you didn’t have an abortion so I can be alive. Isn’t that ridiculous? If you aborted me, I wouldn’t really have an opinion, would I?” She responded, casually as she always does when she is revealing something important, “Well, you’re alive because I did have an abortion.” She was 15 and in an interracial relationship her parents did not approve of. Barely managing to avoid dropping out of high school, my mom knew that having a child was not an option for her. The year was 1974 – Roe had just become the law of the land and the Hyde Amendment was not in effect. So, her aunt and uncle brought her to the clinic, and she had a state subsidized abortion. She graduated high school, went to college and met my dad.

I was born in 1987, and my family started teaching me the importance of reproductive autonomy as earlier as I can remember. We talked about my privilege as a middle class white girl with understanding parents and access to health services, the importance of controlling one’s body to control one’s destiny, and their pride in my great-great-aunt, who had been a midwife in the Lower East Side before Roe and performed illegal abortions. But it wasn’t until I was in the Reproductive Justice movement that they began to sit me down and tell me just why it was so important to them.

Blog for Choice: Trust Women, Respect Choice (Photograph)

Evelyn Atkinson, Guest Blogger (Alum, Harvard Law '12, Law Students for Reproductive Justice) 
This post is part of Blog for Choice 2013, launched by Boston Students for Sexual and Reproductive Justice (BSSRJ).

Blog for Choice 2013: Roe at 40 Cartoon

Megan J. Smith, Guest Blogger. (Repeal Hyde Art Project)

This post is part of Blog for Choice 2013, launched by the Boston Students for Sexual and Reproductive Justice (BSSRJ).

This post can also be found at Megan's personal blog, meganjuliasmith.wordpress.com.

Blog for Choice 2013: Reclaiming “Until Abortion Ends” in the New Year

Anonymous Guest Blogger (Member, BSSRJ) 
This post is part of Blog for Choice 2013, launched by Boston Students for Sexual and Reproductive Justice (BSSRJ).

In 2011, the I am Whole Life organization embarked on a new anti-choice campaign. “Until Abortion Ends” featured “protesters” (often young) in videos, photographs, Facebook posts—whatever, pledging to give up something they “loved” until legal and safe abortions came to an end.  Pro-choice critics like myself found this campaign not only ridiculous because its “righteous” youngsters were protesting a serious issue by giving up a piece of junk food, but also offensive for it’s anti-women, anti-choice, and anti-reproductive rights bull.  However, we could alternatively view this campaign as a missed opportunity for feminists, pro-choicers, and good people all around to bring recognition and action to some real issues still facing women and many men today.  So for 2013, I’ve decided we should bring back the “Until [Insert cause] Ends” campaign to focus on what we really care about. Some sample picket sign ideas follow:

Until rape ends.

Until incest ends.

Until poverty ends.

Until forced marriage ends.

Until domestic violence ends.

Until child sexual abuse ends.

Until modern day slavery ends.

Until male child preference ends.

Until unplanned pregnancy ends.

Until abstinence-only education ends.

Until others’ control of women’s bodies ends.

Until politicians regulating reproduction ends.

Until unequal access to birth control methods ends.

Instead of protesting abortion, maybe the above suggestions would be more worthy causes. A woman decides to have an abortion for a myriad of complex reasons.  Until all of these reasons end, we will always need access to safe, legal, affordable, and non-judgmental abortions. And until abortion ends, women will still have the choice and chance to make their own decisions about their bodies and lives.