abortionclinicdays

Obvious Child

I know we're usually ultra serious about abortion in this blog, but I wanted to let people know about a romantic comedy that features abortion in a positive yet humorous light. It's called Obvious Child (and the Paul Simon song by the same name is featured) and it's about a young woman (Donna) who is dumped and in the consolation drunk hooks up with a guy and gets pregnant. Sort of like Knocked Up except the guy is basically a good soul.

Donna is not too conflicted about her decision--she doesn't even remember the guy's name-- and chalks it up to temporary stupidity. That allows for a certain light hearted inevitability. She confers with her girlfriend and asks, "Will it hurt?" She replies, "Not as much as the break up."

Unlike Juno (which I loved in spite of this scene) the abortion clinic is neutral, and the actual abortion is just her nodding off. The "recovery" has women not meeting each others' eyes (ah the stigma shows up) and I guess that happens, although in my experience recovery rooms are fairly friendly.

So check out Gillian Robespierre's Obvious Child and tell your friends. It deserves a wide audience. (in case the link doesn't work http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/a_rom_com_about_abortion/)

--bon

Supreme Court Travesty

The abortion clinic world has been has been turned upside down by the latest upholding of the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban." Doctors and clinic administrators are struggling to understand the gray areas of the law so that they will not be prosecuted for doing regular abortions. Remember, in some states it is an exceedingly hostile environment and it wouldn't take that much to create a case against someone. The accusation would not stick, but the defense costs would bankrupt most clinics.

There are lots of commentators who are saying that this doesn't mean a thing, and it won't affect any real women, and it's all extreme politics. Basically, they are saying that this is not a significant precedent. The thing to remember is that IT WAS NEVER ABOUT ANYTHING REAL. From the made up name of "partial birth abortion" which does not describe anything doctors know about, to the widespread, deliberate misrepresentations that it only applies to third trimester abortions, or "late term abortions," another misnomer. It has been a fund-raising/PR strategy of the Far Right from the beginning, and it has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, and our wildest nightmares. Although this is not reported on CNN or in your local papers, the anti's have vowed to ban abortion, procedure by procedure. This is the first, and D&E is next. Justice Kennedy invites that, in fact, with his gleefully graphic description of a D&E "dismemberment" of the fetus inside the womb. The idea is that if enough people are horrified by a procedure it can be banned.

If you have the time I really encourage you to read the decision itself and watch for all the anti-abortion rhetoric and blatant disrespect of women, who are seen as creatures who need protecting from their own choices. And this is the really significant precedent that unravels 30 years of jurisprudence: no health exception for women. Instead, they refer any conflicts between medical opinions, you will love this, to the state and federal legislatures. No comfort there unless maybe you live in NY, but it is an unnecessary invitation to the states to pass all kinds of laws restricting abortion. Michigan had three new anti-abortion bills on Thursday.

So, I am not trying to cry wolf here. This decision blows an ill wind.
--Bon

how to stop the shootings

i received this from a colleague who is also an abortion provider.  her words speak for many of us who have lived with terrorism for a long long time.

---

	Tue, Apr 17, 2007
As I read the paper and watch my TV, trying to take in the tragedy that has befallen the students, parents and faculty of Virginia Tech,  I am feeling sick and in shock.  I also feel a huge fear for my children.  I know and am reminded that I cannot protect them anywhere.   Maybe I am a conspiracy theorist, but I cannot help but look at the history of this kind of violence and link it directly back to the anti abortion movement.   They were the very first people to speak so hatefully and announce with pride their thoughts of justifiable homicide.  They were the first to post doctors' pictures on the Internet advocating killing, admitting who they were, yet there was NO PUBLIC CONDEMNATION.  Even so called religious people often beat around the bush refusing to say it was wrong or in fact said nothing at all. So the anti-abortion faction commited arson,  firebombed us, shot us and then one of them got brave enough to go out in broad daylight and shoot at 2 clinics (3?) in Boston.  And evade the authorities for how long?  One of them blew up a clinic killing a police officer and almost killing but maiming the nurse and what happened?  Nothing!   The White House under  President Reagan and the first Pres. Bush entertained Joe Scheidler as a guest, and and others I no longer remember who were certainly  themselves early terrorists or advocates of terrorism.  And still no public outcry. Finally, after the same bomber planted a bomb in Atlanta during the Summer Olympics, this got some attention.   When the school shootings started, Columbine and the rest, where did people think these kids learned their hate and their skills and the belief that is was ok to kill  people.  What did anyone with an ounce of sense think would happen to a generation of young people who saw others turn their heads from violence because it was aimed at a select few.  And it was controversial after all.    Of course, after  911, Domestic Terrorism was suddenly in the news.  But in print or on the news no one mentioned that abortion providers have been living with terrorism for a long time.  They pretended it was new. When the members of congress first started getting envelopes with possible anthrax in them, abortion providers already had booklets that the ATF had printed for handling anthrax threats in our clinics.   Many of us had gone through that kind of terrorism years earlier. Yesterday's actions may have been by someone who is mentally ill but where did the example, the idea come from?  We are all responsible for putting an end to hate.  Just last week some people still thought it was a fuss about nothing when hate talk against women athletes was allowed to continue.  Even when the shock jock was eventually fired, there were still a lot of people who thought it was funny.  Unless people of leadership and faith announce the connection and call for an end we as a nation are going to see ever more violence.   When a crazy man can stand outside my friend's clinic today and still say these hateful things and call himself a minister, a man of God, why doesn't the public rush to run his ass out of town.  If we want to see these shootings end it has to start there, with people like this minister, because they are the ones who started it all.   I am sorry if I am ranting especially because many of you have also  lived with this or something equally frightening or painful but I just needed to write it for me.  My rage and pain do not feel lessened but somehow I feel stronger. Thank you for listening to me.

what do students want to know?

recently i had occasion to speak by invitation to a few graduate school classes.  since their questions might be your questions, i thought i'd try to synopsize what we talked about.  i first told them how and why i love my work.  there are so few jobs that make a difference in women's lives, that are never boring, and that could provide one with enough work in the aspects of service delivery, the politics, and the law to keep a person as busy as she cares to be.  nothing is more real than dealing with life and death decisions on a daily basis, although rather than making the decisions ourselves what we do is bear witness to the intensity of the struggle of women and men to make a wise and honorable decision.  and it is just that.  most of the women either know instinctively because of their circumstances what their choice is or else they think long and hard about what they can best live with.  you have read many of the stories on this blog if you are a regular reader.  i gave the classes three examples from that very day:  one woman, age 25, already raising two children on her own, barely making it.  just recently, her mom, her aunt, her uncle died, pretty much wiping out her support system.  what she wanted, longed for, was to give life, but felt that she could not do it and raise her two children, so with tears, she put herself in god's hands and prayed for understanding.

the next story was of a younger woman, whom you would never imagine was over a year in recovery from a very serious heavy drug problem.  in order to get clean and stay clean, she had to leave her family and friends behind, because all of them are addicts.  that was the only life she has ever known but she wants a different life for herself.  for her, as for many, abortion is about just that, hopes and dreams for a better life.  this particular young woman still needs to go to daily NA meetings and does not feel strong enough to not use in times of stress.  she's proud of her recovery but not assuming that she can yet stay clean and sober.  what she wants more than anything in the world, is to someday feel confident in her ability to withstand the stresses of pregnancy and parenting, with a strong enough support system that she can have the children she longs for.

and i told them, too, of the woman i had just sent home because she was not sure of her decison.  at first i thought she was at the clinic just to please her boyfriend who let her know that he is not at all interested in parenthood.  i told her that that are plenty of resources should she want to continue the pregnancy and she, in turn,  told me that her mother wants her to have the baby and has promised to help her.  with such a degree of uncertainty, and the possibility that she was considering abortion only to please a boyfriend who might be out of her life soon anyhow, i sent her home along with a decision making workbook. LINK

the grad students were quite interested to hear that only 6% of our patients are under the age of 18, which is, of course a shock to most folks who assume that it is teens  who are most likely to become pregnant.  NOT TRUE.  also, about 55% of our patients already have at least one child at last count.  i suspect the percentage is higher these days.

i got a lot of questions about the mandatory delay laws in our state as well as the process by which a minor who feels she cannot or does not want to tell her parents can go to court to have a judge declare her mature enough to make her own decision.  in fact the kinds of reasons that a minor might choose not to involve her parents often is either because the parent would not grant permission or they don't have such a great relationship, or the parent is overwhelmed with their own problems, has a drug or alcohol problem or is caring for an ailing parent or partner themselves. my years of experience have taught me that the great majority of teens do involve a parent and the few who do not have very good reasons for not doing so.

whether or not the women were using birth control was also a question and of course, most were using some method of birth control, thinking that the pill or condoms could protect them, which it does in most cases, but not nearly as well as the better forms of birth control such as the Mirena IUD or Implanon, the two most effective (and long lasting) methods on the market today.

i very much appreciated the questions about what my life as a provider is like, asking how am i treated in social situations, and if i tell people what i do.  and of course i tell anyone who cares to hear about my work what i do as readers of this blog can tell.  this is my life's work.  i am proud of it.  my family, which is probably more religious than many, has come to accept my work, but only after many years of my being a provider.  at first i think they were concerned for my safety, but as i let them know that that was not my focus, they have come to see that my mission is much greater than just the provision of the service, that it is more about telling the women's stories, of their decision making, and of their wanting to stay in connection with their god, their religion.  my own children did suffer, but it was at the hands of anti-abortion threats against them when they were young.  i guess i never believed that anyone would kill them, but rather wanted to scare me.  and scare me they did.  more like terrorize.  my husband has always been supportive of my work; if he were not, i never would have made it.  he always believed in what i have chosen as my life's work, just as i respect his work.

i usually end my talks to grad and professional school students with a wish for them, a wish that they choose work for which they have passion, work that makes a difference, work that makes them want to get up in the morning.  i have been fortunate enough to feel that way and it allows me to put in more hours than most people want to work.  i encourage them to choose whatever will bring them the same joy.

lou

.

one in three pregnancies planned

to me, the importance of this article is that women are having an even harder time preventing pregnancy at a time when they are not prepared to have a (or another) child.  the US continues to have the highest rate of unintended pregnancy in the developed world.  and THAT is a tragedy. 

lou


UNPLANNED PREGNANCY, ABORTION OFTEN HAPPEN

MORE THAN ONCE IN A WOMAN’S LIFETIME

New Guttmacher Study Notes Role that Government Has Played in Making It Harder—Not Easier—for Women Having Abortions to Prevent the Next Unplanned Pregnancy

About half of all U.S. women having abortions in 2002 had already had a prior abortion, according to Repeat Abortion in the United States, released today by the Guttmacher Institute. Moreover, one in three women have given birth to a baby they had not planned for, and one in 10 have had two or more unintended births. Repeat unintended pregnancies that end either in abortions or unplanned births occur among women from all economic, racial and ethnic backgrounds, the authors point out, suggesting that the reproductive health care system in general is failing to provide women with the services and counseling they need.

“Our study challenges the misperception that women who have more than one abortion are different from other women,” says lead author Rachel K. Jones, senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute. “The typical woman having a second or third abortion is, in many ways, like the typical woman having her first abortion—and in turn, all types of American women have abortions. This suggests that we need to do a better job helping all women better prevent unwanted pregnancies, so they can avoid having to decide whether to seek abortions or raise children they are not prepared for.”

In fact, the only notable differences between women obtaining a first abortion and those who had already had one or more abortions are that those obtaining repeat abortions tend to be older and to have more children. This makes sense, as older women have been at risk of unintended pregnancy longer than younger women. Overall, most women obtaining abortions are poor or low-income, and six in 10 are already mothers.

The authors found no evidence of women using abortion as their primary method of family planning. The majority of women having abortions were using contraceptives when they became pregnant, regardless of whether it was their first abortion or they had already had a prior abortion. In fact, women obtaining second and higher-order abortions were slightly more likely to have been using a highly effective hormonal method (such as the pill, the patch or the ring) when they became pregnant. These patterns suggest that most women who have abortions are trying to avoid unintended pregnancies but are having trouble doing so.

The time when a woman seeks an abortion is an opportunity to offer family planning services and counseling to help her prevent another unintended pregnancy. Yet a quarter of a century of government policies at the state, federal and international levels have impeded this process. For example, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania require strict separation between organizations providing state-funded family planning services and organizations providing abortion-related services. At the federal level, Title X–funded family planning programs must 
be “separate and distinguishable” from abortion-related activities. And in developing countries, clinics or hospitals where abortions are provided are prohibited from receiving U.S. assistance for any postabortion contraceptive services and counseling.

“The ‘wall of separation’ that the federal government has erected between family planning and abortion services is, paradoxically, leading to more abortions,” says Sharon Camp, Guttmacher president and CEO. “While intended to distance publicly-funded family planning clinics from abortion services, an unintended consequence is that it is getting in the way of abortion providers’ ability to facilitate women’s access back to family planning clinics. These policies interfere with the ability of abortion providers to ensure that, following an abortion, every woman has an appropriate contraceptive method and is able to use it consistently. And it is poor and low-income women in this country—those who have the highest rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion—as well as women in the world’s poorest countries, who are paying the price. We’re failing to prevent abortions because we’re letting down women in the greatest need.”

Click here for the full report Repeat Abortion in the United States.

For more information about this issue or about the Guttmacher Institute, please contact Rebecca Wind at 212-248-1953 or mediaworks@guttmacher.org.

famous anonymous

Hey, our blog is famous! Well, sort of. Some excerpts of this blog are appearing in a new book on abortion politics called Abortion Under Attack: Women on the Challenges Facing Choice edited by Krista Jacob with an introduction by Rebecca Walker. It will be released on amazon.com October 28, 2006, with an advanced discount, no less.

We submitted to this anthology because the editor, and publisher--Seal Press-- was working hard to collect new perspectives on what it means to be pro choice in this time. We felt strongly that if the abortion experience were not represented--albeit from a provider perspective--it would be a great loss to anyone hoping to understand abortion in today's context. It strikes me that there are still too few women speaking out about their abortion experience and still not enough safe places to speak the full range of experiences and feelings. I liked the Ms. Magazine "I Had an Abortion" petition, but it was just the shock value, not the detail rich stories. And there are talklines, notably Backline (yourbackline.org) and Exhale (4exhale.org) but that is not a public venue that we all get to listen to and take away information. So, until there is more safe opportunities and a kinder, gentler political environment, our patient stories will have to stand in for the hundreds of thousands of stories that don't get heard.

Buy the book. There's other great stuff in it.

--bon

More!!

The media so rarely get it the way you want it, but here is an author that is comfortable with complexity and nuance. Monika Bauerlein writes in MORE magazine about trying to hear real people's experiences in a political context that doesn't always allow a fuller discourse. She interviewed two abortion providers and some prochoice folks too.

Even better were three companion first person articles about changing from a black and white world view (prochoice) to a gray but still prochoice view. One was a woman who has repeated IVF procedures and felt surprisingly proprietary about her 8 celled "children." Another was a male abortion counselor who shifted his rhetoric after he saw his own baby's ultrasound. And the third, and my favorite, was a woman with a teen who was appalled that her daughter watched her friends blithely have children and not know they had a choice. This middle aged dyed in the wool prochoice activist had to "come out" to her daughter about her own abortion and her beliefs about women's lives.

A good read: In the stores now, with Sigourney Weaver on the cover, or on line. Here is a link to the article from More magazine.
http://ww5.more.com/more/story.jsp?storyid=/templatedata/more/story/data/1158939433681.xml

--bon

will we repeat the past?

SOMETIMES WE FORGET THAT ABORTION EXISTED LONG BEFORE THE ROE VS WADE DECISION IN 1973.  AND MANY OTHERS MIGHT NOT KNOW THAT BIRTH CONTROL ITSELF WAS ILLEGAL IN MASSACHUSETTS UNTIL 1966, MEANKNG THAT THE BIRTH CONTROL PILL WAS OUT AND AVAILABLE BUT AGAINST THE LAW!

I RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING EMAIL FROM A FRIEND WHO TEACHES WOMEN'S STUDIES AT A WELL KNOWN UNIVERSITY.  HER ENTHUSIASM IS ALMOST AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR ANYONE SEEKING TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT THE PAST MIGHT TEACH US ABOUT TODAY.

lou

Dear xxx,
i've been so eager to tell you about a new book that I read last weekend 
called Creating Choice: A Community Responds to the Need for Birth 
Control and Abortion, 1961-1973, by David Cline.  This is the 
book that I've been looking for, especially for teaching about the 
complexities of the ethics of abortion and the choices surrounding it 
before it was legal.  It's a series of oral histories of women who obtained underground abortions, feminists, physicians, and the clergy who were instrumental in creating an underground abortion network in the 1960s and early 1970s.  By allowing those involved to speak for themselves, Cline helps to reveal their various motivations without politicizing their words, making them "PC" or "acceptable."  By allowing them to speak without interference, Cline validates their voices and grants them the authenticity and complexity they they deserve.  So much of the current abortion debate is about making abortion palatable or villifying women who chose abortion and the clinic staff, friends, clergy, and family members who support them.  This book is an honest approach to a difficult subject that allows it to be complex, messy, and not always easy to hear.  It sometimes made me squirm, and I felt good that it did because abortion is difficult and it is sometimes hard to deal with.  This was about real people and real issues not politics or polemics.

Cline focuses on one community in Western Massachusetts that includes Northampton and Amherst, and this community focus allows him to expose the myriad interconnections between clergy, feminists, nurses, and physicians active in 
the abortion underground.  He also shows how the politics of birth control were 
intimately related to those of abortion.  Massachusetts, now considered to be one of the most liberal states in the country, was the last state to legalize birth control in 1966. The relationship between women's inability to obtain contraception (and shockingly, the University of Mass. Amherst's health staff's willingness to violate the state law and provide contraception, with the knowledge of the university) and the number of unexpected pregnancies is made clear.

This book joins only a few others that recognizes the critical role the clergy played in creating a "safe" underground network.  Part of the Clergy Consultation Service, established in New York by Rev. Howard Moody, the two clergy groups chronicled here, like dozens of similar groups across the country, was committed to helping women make decisions about their pregnancies.  They offered counseling, abortion referals, AND adoption referals, in addition to helping those women who chose to carry pregnancies to term and to keep their babies begin constructive dialogues with the family members and welfare services who would become integral sources of support.  Significantly, these clergy believed that they answered to a higher law than to that which deemed abortion criminal. 

One of the things that I appreciate about this book is that it did not "polish" its players. For example, an interview published by an abortion provider, who used an ivory-soap mix to induce abortion.  She charged high fees and had some shady connections with the criminal underworld, but she also provided free services to those in need and she expressed a deep desire to offer her services to women who needed them.  Again, abortion is a complex, difficult issue, and the political battles fought over it in the last twenty years have reduced it to sound-bites and linear arguments.  Consequently, the complexities over the ethics, politics, and decisions involved with abortion have been marginalized. This book, hopefully, is one step towards bringing these complexities back into the public discourse.  Further, by examining the issues of abortion and birth control from a wide perspective, it demonstrates that abortion is a community and social issue--it goes far beyond being "just" a women's issue.  Abortion involves men, partners, parents, friends, clergy, physicians, as well as the women undergoing the procedure.  Further, this book suggests, I believe correctly, that abortion is about far more than the termination of a pregancy, bodily autonomy, reproductive privacy, and debates about when life begins and viability; instead, it shows that this is fundamentally about women's roles in society, about social values and the roles of religion in our society, specifically the role of religion in relationship to the state.  But again, women have never lived separate from men, their families, and societies.  Abortion is and has been far more of a community issue than we are currrenly willing to recognize.

Another thing I appreciate about the book is the perspective it gives about counseling, and the importance of counseling to the abortion experience.  Interviews with feminists and clergy involved in abortion referral reveals the extensive thought and training that went into the development of pregnancy counseling.  Both groups strove to be non-biased and supportive; and the feminists believed they played an especially critical role because they believed that women should support other women during difficult times.  Not only did they think deeply and work hard to develop a comprehensive counseling program within their own referral services, but the feminists in particular demanded that counseling be instituted in legal abortion services after the Supreme Court handed down Roe v. Wade.  These women pressured the physicians and administrators at newly established clinics to integrate counseling into their services AND because they were the only ones in the country with experience, they successfully pushed these same groups to hire them.  Thus, feminists who developed pregancy counseling in the underground took their knowledge and skills above ground after Roe and trained a generation of abortion counselors. Thanks to them, many clininics around the country continue to emphasize counseling with the same non-biased, supportive emphasis used thirty+ years ago. Reading Cline, I felt like I was reading this hidden history of abortion counseling, which has been glossed over in the academic  literature, and which I only learned about because I had heard from one other early counselor's experience several years ago.  I am thankful that the importance of counselor's work is coming to light.   

Anyway, I've been staring at this book on my shelf for about two months now and randomly picked it up last week when my head was finally clear enough to digest the difficulties of the issue.  I was immediately captivated by its honestly and complexity and willingess to let abortion be the complext, diffiucult issue that it is.  I truly feel like I have a teaching tool that presents an authentic view of abortion in the two decades before it was legal.  I DO NOT intend to use this to convert students to the "choice" view, but instead to present the complexities of the issue in historic context and in community perspective.  I hope that Cline's book will provoke students to think deeply about their ideas of abortion; whether it reinforces their objection to or support for the legalization of abortion is irrelevant.  I like this book because it will make students think beyond the politics, which are now so far removed from women's actual experiences.

are we post Roe?

The media has all but declared the Roe v Wade decision, legalizing abortion in the first and second trimesters, dead. And certainly all the hype about the South Dakota law would confirm that. Being in a blue state I find it hard to believe that legal abortion will be over any time soon, but maybe I will just be very busy dealing with folks flying in from red states. We have already seen two patients from South Dakota (prior to the law by a couple of weeks), so anything can happen. Personally, I think the Republicans are too smart to let Roe go; it's such a great core issue for their base and it would just evaporate.

Still, there is something akin to apocalyptic in the air. Someone sent me the link to a site teaching ordinary non medical folks how to do abortions. () I was just musing about this possibility to some of my colleagues. At the time I thought it was an interesting tactic, but the reality of it is very frightening. Forceps grabbing at "material" inside the body--makes my skin crawl. The risk of a perforation or uterine injury seems quite high, and remember the uterus has a lot of vascularization so there could be a lot of blood, like a fatal amount of blood. It's very scary, but of course it will happen as sure as we are sitting in front of our computers.

An alternative that would be safer and cheaper would be stockpiling some Cytotec (misoprostol) which is used by a lot of elderly and people with ulcers. And it's apparently quite available over the counter in places like Mexico. Four tabs vaginally (all the way up) or two tabs dissolved in the mouth, or even swallowed is likely to start a miscarriage. It may not finish it, particularly if you are beyond 9 weeks from the last period, but it could certainly start it.

But before you start shaking down your grandmother for her prescriptions, let's get a grip. Abortion is still legal, and SAFE. Remember the SAFE part of "safe and legal." To have come this far and go back to pre-Roe is really depressing. Abortion is the safest medical procedure there is. And the most common. How about that? And, I like to think there is a growing trend of clinics who offer compassionate care, who "get" that this is complex emotional stuff, and offer their patients "specialized medicine." And now we are looking at black market medicine, sterilizing unfamiliar medical equipment in a home pressure cooker.

I keep saying that post-Roe "everything will be revealed." SD Senator Napoli presents as so perverted about sex and abortion that it would be laughable if he hadn't just succeeded in passing a law that will certainly kill some young women. And, we will all be put to a political test about legal abortion. All the mushy middle folks who hate abortion but would like to keep it around, just in case their daughter might need it are going to get whiplash re-instating legal abortion. And what the Roe decision fixed, thousands of illegal, unsafe abortions, and thousands of women dying, would be right back again. I am not completely unhappy that people are forced to consider the what if's. But I am sickened and horrified about the inevitable results of repressive legislation about abortion.

--bon

the truth about the south dakota law

the two authors below believe that the new south dakota law that hopes to ban all abortions in that state is much more dangerous than most people had at first believed.   some believe that women themselves could be jailed for attempting to self abort.  can this possibly be true?

lou

March 6, 2006, 8:20PM
The truth S.D. lawmakers won't tell on abortion law
Pregnant women can, will face possible arrest

By LYNN PALTROW and CHARON ASETOYER

Monday the governor of South Dakota signed into law a bill that would
ban
virtually all abortions in the state. Neither the governor nor any of
the
law's supporters, however, have been honest about what the cost and
effect
of such a law will be.
Those who authored this bill and those who voted for it want to create
the
impression that only the people providing the abortions will be
punished,
not the women having them. They are not brave enough or honest enough to
admit what is clear: Women will be punished, and they and their families
will suffer if this law goes into effect.
We know that before 1973, when abortion was illegal in most states, that
even if the statute did not specifically provide for the prosecution of
the
woman who had the abortion, pregnant women could still be arrested under
separate laws permitting the prosecution of those who aid and abet a
crime.
Moreover, as Leslie Regan point out in her book, When Abortion was a
Crime,
many women, while not arrested, were publicly shamed and subjected to
police
investigations that were in and of themselves a form of punishment.
Undoubtedly, the law's supporters will point to language that
specifically
states that "nothing in this Act may be construed to subject the
pregnant
mother upon whom any abortion is performed or attempted to any criminal
conviction and penalty." The truth is, though, that this particular act
need
not authorize arrests of pregnant women for such arrest to start taking
place.
South Dakota, like many other states, has adopted numerous laws that
seek to
establish the unborn as full legal persons. For example, South Dakota
has a
feticide statute that makes the killing of an "unborn child" at any
stage of
prenatal development fetal homicide, manslaughter or vehicular
homicide, as
well as a law that requires doctors to tell women that an abortion ends
the
life of "a whole, separate, unique living human being." The new law
banning
virtually all abortions states that it is based on the conclusion "that
life
begins at the time of conception," and that "each human being is totally
unique immediately at fertilization."
If the unborn are legal persons, as numerous South Dakota laws assert,
then
a pregnant woman who has an abortion can be prosecuted as a murderer
under
already existing homicide laws.
Farfetched? Not at all.
Prosecutors all over the country have been experimenting with this
approach
for years. In South Carolina, Regina McKnight is serving a 12-year
sentence
for homicide by child abuse. Why? Because she suffered an unintentional
stillbirth. The prosecutors said she caused the stillbirth by using
cocaine,
yet, they did not charge her with having an illegal abortion - a crime
that
in South Carolina has a three-year sentence. Rather, they charged and
convicted her of homicide - a crime with a 20- year sentence. They
obtained
this conviction in spite of evidence that McKnight's stillbirth was
caused
by an infection.
Thus far, South Carolina is the only state whose courts have upheld the
legitimacy of such prosecutions. But in fact, women in states across the
country, including South Dakota, have already been arrested as child
abusers
or murderers - without any new legislation authorizing such arrests. In
Oklahoma, Teresa Hernandez is sitting in jail on first-degree murder
charges
for having suffered an unintentional stillbirth. In Utah, a woman was
charged with murder based on the claim that she caused a stillbirth by
refusing to have a C-section earlier in her pregnancy.
If women are now being arrested as murderers for having suffered
unintentional stillbirths, one should assume that in South Dakota's
post-Roe
world intentional abortions would be punished just as seriously.
South Dakota lawmakers don't want their constituents to know or face the
likely results of their actions. Eric Sterling, president of the
Criminal
Justice Policy Foundation, notes that federal and state law enforcement
agencies have grown significantly in the past 30 years. He warns that in
states where abortion is recriminalized, people should expect strict
enforcement with the use of stings, informants, wiretaps, computers and
databases to gather evidence and obtain guilty pleas.
Rather than admit that this law will hurt pregnant women and mothers,
South
Dakota's legislators pretend it protects them. Indeed, the authors of
this
bill call it "The Women's Health and Human Life Protection Act." In
another
age we might expect that legislation so-named would address such urgent
women's health problems as breast and cervical cancer, the fact that
88,350
South Dakotans are without health insurance, the equivalent of 12
percent of
the state's population, or the fact that South Dakota guarantees no paid
maternity leave for the many mothers who must continue working in order
to
feed their families.
Far from protecting women's health, this law will undermine women's
health -
because women will have abortions for health, family and personal
reasons
whether they are legal or not - and it will open the door to the
arrests of
women themselves. Those who support argue that this is OK, because at
least
it will protect unborn life. South Dakota's lawmakers, however, should
be
brave enough to admit that in passing this law they are attacking the
women
who give that life and ignoring the real life criminal and public health
consequences of such a law.
Paltrow is executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant
Women
in New York City. Asetoyer is executive director of the Native American
Women's Health and Education Resource Center in South Dakota.