abortionclinicdays

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.

Accutane: The intersection of medicine and politics

Accutane is a godsend for anyone who has cystic acne, a horribly disfiguring skin problem that causes social as well as health problems for young people who suffer from it. Unfortunately, it also causes pretty awful birth defects in children whose mothers took it while pregnant. The ideal use of the drug is for 4 months at relatively high doses, but some doctors prescribe it for longer periods at lower strengths--not sure why. The drug itself is packaged interestingly--not just in a bubble pack, but a package that is almost impossible to open, and to do so, you have to break a seal that has a little picture of a pregnant belly with a big red cross through it.

A new program by the manufacturer called, iPledge, restricts prescribing for the drug to those who promise to use birth control, make doctors do pregnancy tests, and in general increase surveillance on patients using the drug so that they do not get pregnant while on it. Some men have been asked to take a pregnancy test and there are many complaints about how cumbersome the process is.

And with all this attention, and money, "Nothing has worked," according to a New York Times article Feb. 11th."The federal government has undertaken more than 40 efforts over the last 23 years to prevent women from becoming pregnant while taking Accutane." About 170,000 people take accutane, half of them women. I appreciate this admission that even when you pay attention, when the consequences are horrible, when you put the weight and money of the government and a pharmaceutical company behind your efforts, it is STILL very difficult to NOT get pregnant!!!

It is very hard, because getting pregnant is as natural for humans as it is for rabbits and cats and all of God's creatures. You have to work really hard not to get pregnant, and no one makes that easy--not the drug companies that keep even generic birth control very pricey. Not the Planned Parenthoods who cut people off their pill if they miss an appointment. Not the schools, churches, and parents who fail to tell kids how to protect themselves. Not the legislatures who don't fund sex education and family planning, but who do fund abstinence only education which not only don't teach the facts kids need to know, but actually MISLEAD kids with messages like "condoms are not effective."

The one group that I know that consistently tries to push birth control, educate women on health, and contraception, and pregnancy are ABORTION CLINICS!! And we might have some more suggestions for the makers of Accutane: Talk about abortion in your literature. Don't just say, "Don't get pregnant on this medication." which is pretty useless advice. Say: "You must use birth control while you are on this medication if you might possibly be sexually active, either voluntarily or not, during the time you are on the medication. If you become pregnant while taking Accutane, you must get an abortion due to the severe side effects associated with the drug. If that is not acceptable to you, DO NOT TAKE THIS MEDICATION." That's what we would call informed consent, and we would probably throw in a description of the problems of these deformed babies.

Unfortunately, the intersection of politics and medicine precludes such honest discussion of risk. So, what we have is expensive posturing that does no good. Bad politics and bad medicine yielding heartache for real people.
--bon

katha, saletan and alito

The 33d Roe v Wade anniversary seemed quiet this year, considering it may well be the last celebration of legal abortion. Among providers, there is a grim despair as all efforts to alarm, persuade, appeal, filibuster, and more have been lost. As a provider in Ohio said, "We can hear the clock ticking on legal abortion."

Interestingly, though, abortion beat reporters and many organizations fundraising for abortion rights are enjoying a resurgence. Fundraisers are well attended; people are paying attention to their disappearing rights. And after decades of trying to get reporters to cover something OTHER THAN the anti-abortion arguments are beginning to write the people involved in abortion experiences back into the stories.

Most amusing to me is the sniping between Wm Saletan, author of Bearing Right, How the Conservatives Won the Abortion War, and Katha Pollit of the Nation. Both are pro choice, both make a lot of sense to me, and yet they are screaming at each other about who is losing abortion rights for all of us.

Saletan, who has analyzed opinion polls about abortion and understands better than anyone how all kinds of Americans feel about abortion, and how that affects policy, says that we should just acknowledge that abortion is bad and focus on getting to zero abortions, better birth control etc etc.
Pollit strongly trumpets the need for legal abortion and the positive good it does for women in providing for their children, contributing to the economic and social well being of our society, and for basically saving women's lives.

It's so odd to live in the day to day world that is so talked about, screamed about, killed over, and agonized over. And of course, I think I have the answer, not only to reconcile Saletan and Pollit, but also our society, or most of it, about the divisive issue of abortion. You see, every single day, I talk to women who do not think abortion is a great thing-- they feel bad, they cry, but they face something that the opinionated public does not: a decision about how to have life, how to bring life into the world. Every single woman wants to make life better and their conclusion is that by ending the potential life inside them, they can better provide, or realize their dreams, or contribute, or just be healthier. They don't love that they have to make such a decision, they know that society looks down on them, that their family or partner or co worker might judge them, but they cannot avoid a choice so they look at their lives and make the best choice, the least bad choice, their choice. And if anyone can tell me how to put that on a bumper sticker or in a sound bite for middle America, please let me know. In the meantime, I will continue to post what I see and hear on the real Abortion Front--in the hearts and minds of women who are pregnant and don't want to be.
Thanks for listening.
--bon

Why Clinics?

A reader has asked an important question: Why do we need abortion CLINICS, why not just go to a hospital or your doctor's office?

Here's the historical development. Abortion was illegal until it was nationally legalized by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade January 22nd, 1973. It was legal in three states prior to that, New York, California, and Colorado. There were always some doctors who did abortions on the sly, or who did a D&C for their patients (oops, I guess they were pregnant!). But it was risky and in the medical community there was a stigma both about the procedure and who got abortions, but also about breaking the law and risking losing your license or a jail term. There is a wonderful movie called "Dear Dr. Spencer" about a doc in a small town in Pennsylvania who operated an office for abortions openly, under cover, so to speak, but mostly it was really cloak and dagger stuff. Some doctors gave their patients an antibiotic and referred them to an abortionist, who might be a midwife, or an ex Army medic, or a funeral home director. Frequently the Mafia controlled access to abortion services.

When abortion became legal in NY, clinics were set up over night and they sometimes worked 7 days a week, 24 hours a day just to keep up with the demand as people travelled from all over the US. Early clinics were an interesting hybrid of medicine and politics. Some of the early advocates of legal abortion were feminists, clergy, and doctors, so they inserted some of that desire to let people talk about their sistuation into mandatory counseling. They also introduced an informed consent process, which meant that everyone needed to be told what was going to happen, what the risks were, what the alternatives were. This was an innovation at the time.

When the rest of the country started to provide abortion services, a mix of the same people, with some entrepreneurs, founded clinics based on the same strategy as any other specialty business: VOLUME. At that time there were still many doctors who performed abortions for their own patients, perhaps one or two a week, or even up to 10 a week, but there was that stigma attached to it, and most doctors realize that getting along in the community is very important to survival. But some people hate to go to hospitals because they can so easily lose their confidentiality or run into a hostile nurse or someone else who knows someone they know, for instance. Also, as larger practices started to form, for reasons of on call coverage, economy, and other factors, it was inevitable that one person in the practice would object to abortions. In larger cities it is still possible to find a private doctor who will do an abortion. (Like on ER the other night Dr. Coburn said, "Abby, I will help you whatever you decide.")

But that is rare, in large part due to the anti's. In the 80's anti abortion activists would call each doctor in town and pose as a patient, ask about ob care, and then ask about abortion. If they said they did that, they would start yelling and screaming at the nurse/receptionist. They picketed doctor's offices and hospitals and mostly it was just not worth it to do abortions in your office. If you wanted to continue to offer it, it was easier to work in a local clinic. More often, especially in smaller cities, you had to bring doctors in from out of town because no one locally would offer the service.

There are a lot of good things about the clinic model however, in spite of the isolation from mainstream medicine that many clinic experience. One is that people who work at clinics really get that pregnancy decisions are very complex and are usually good at understanding what their clients need. (Not always true, some clinics seem to adopt the stigma we are trying to change. I don't get why they are still in business...) Unfortunately, this frees people who just do obstetrics or birth control to miss part of the picture. Like every sub specialty, though, you can assemble a staff that really knows what they are doing, medically and emotionally. I remember talking to one doctor who worked in a hospital setting who said that it was nightmarish having to work with different nurses in the hospital who hated what he was doing or who would inadvertently hand him the wrong medicine because they were inexperienced.

And of course, there is the business part of the story. There is great economy of scale if you can bring all the right staff, resources, patients, and medical people to one session. Some Planned Parenthoods, for instance, schedule several visits for the convenience of staff and patients complain that they have to take off work or school, or find child care twice or three times.

I have given you the long answer. The short answer is stigma. Abortion clinics exist because those in the regular practice of medicine cannot withstand the heat or the stigma of providing abortions. In a society so divided about a subject, and with so much heat about the issue, you need people whose job it is to withstand the pressures, the negative attention, and who are not beholden to referral pressures in the medical community. If that same facility can evolve as an understanding place to go with a pregnancy crisis, then that's turning lemons into lemonade.

Thanks for the question.
--bon

Fetal Tissue

Sometimes the crazy anti-abortion fringe is all over "a controversial issue" before we as abortion providers are ready to talk publicly about it. Well, not this time! I am willing to talk about fetal tissue, what happens to it, how we treat it, and how donation of fetal tissue could help science and mankind.

I just read an anti-abortion newsletter that was so ranting and inaccurate that it inspired me to respond. At the same time, we are exploring the donation of fetal tissue for research. This seems like such a positive thing, especially when there is a lockdown on support for embryonic stem cell research.

This anti-abortion person is claiming that there is no "public record of what happens to fetal cadavers", which is a fascinating re-framing of what all government regulations treat as "hazardous waste", as they do any human tissue, be it blood, tumors, parts removed by surgery etc. There are very strict guidelines about how all human tissue is handled, and medical waste is a very well regulated business, the Sopranos not withstanding. It is ultimately buried or burned. But of course, the real reason for the rant is that the anti's want to be able to harass the medical waste people, the operators of the incinerators, which are often hospitals, and of course US! And this moral outrage comes from the people who have literally stolen fetuses from pathology labs, clinics, etc. and paraded them around in shoe boxes, pawed through them on video, and generally exploited--not respected--fetuses.

In my clinic, we wash off the tissue and examine it. It is treated respectfully and put with the woman's first name into a container. We show it to patients if they ask to see it, and make sure they understand which part is the sac (later the placenta), which part the pregnancy if visible (after 9 weeks), and which part the lining of the uterus. People have been known to pray over it, write notes for inclusion, "baptize" it, etc etc. Some clinic staff have also been known to say a little prayer over it--thanking it for its sacrifice so that the woman could continue on the path she was on.

We are now exploring giving the option for women to donate fetal tissue to research efforts. This would be completely at the discretion of the woman, but typically women feel that "something good can come of this" and agree to it enthusiastically. The whole process is highly scrutinized and regulated by an IRB--Institutional Review Board whose job it is to look at the ethics of research and using human subjects. And by law no one can be compensated for participation--not the woman, not the clinic, doctor, or institution. It is simply illegal, and you can bet that the high profile practice of abortion would get a thorough looking over.

I am belaboring this point because this anti-abortion newsletter details the "selling of body parts" with outrageous price lists. They are reprising a story that has long been discredited. A pathology lab was infiltrated by an anti, to inform on the abortion industry, but instead created a set up of lies and sensational fabrications. One small point will show you how none of their accusations would even make sense: all samples sent to the lab by clinic like ours were packed in formalin, a very toxic preservative that destroys all research value.

But the good news is that, in certain situations, much good can come out of a fetal tissue research program. All the flap about embryonic stem cells from leftover in vitro fertilization is moot, since the decision has been made by the woman to terminate the pregnancy. Fetal stem cell lines are already showing promise in certain medical therapies. Ironically, because of the partial ban on stem cell research by the Bush Administration, other countries are forging ahead with the research, and American scientists are trying to associate themselves with scientists in other countries. The problem with this is that standards are different in other countries and there are not the stringent guidelines and protections that there are in this country. Another misguided Bush policy that creates a worse situation than it was trying to fix.

I am imagining how different the debate might be if the American public knew that incredible advances in science and medicine came because women were generous enough to think of others in the midst of their difficult time.
--bon

Give to your local abortion fund

My rant on getting a woman funds for her abortion has brought up the issue of why it is such a struggle to raise money for poor women's abortions. This has long been a hot button for me, and I can remember long long ago, like maybe 15 years ago, arguing with Patricia Ireland of NOW (who bless her heart was at least talking to a provider...) about how the pro choice movement should tithe a certain percent of their fundraising to women who cannot afford an abortion. My point was that groups like NARAL and Planned Parenthood were, at the time, fundraising off the misery of the clinics who were under siege by the anti's. The LEAST they could do is give some back to women in need. Her point was that her group and others didn't fundraise for other organizations.

Getting funding from one of the--now== many funds requires that the clinic reduce their fee. (I think it is a requirement--maybe a moral one if not an actual one) Until there were funds, clinics would bear the burden of "charity cases." I know everyone thinks that abortion clinics make money hand over fist, but let me put it to you this way: my mother's illegal abortion in the 50's cost more than I currently charge. Medical inflation is skyrocketing and we are not immune to that, plus we have very high malpractice insurance and security costs, both because of the targeted harassment of the anti's. Abortion fees are artificially low.

We finally started our own fund, accepting donations, but also adding $5 to the fee for the fund. It cleared our psychic energy for more important things, and by passed those horrible clinic discussions where staff were trying to raise money for a particular patient. (This really happens, not in my clinic but I have heard of many clinics where it does.)

Last week one of my co-workers, reading about the millions being raised and spent to defeat Judge Alito for Supreme Court, said to me, "Think how many abortions that could fund...illegal or not." We smiled at our own wishful thinking and answered the next call from a desperate woman.

Why is funding abortion SUCH a tough sell? I think there is a somewhat legitimate position that says, "We want to organize, and fundraise, to change the system to do what it should do, not just help individual women." But to paraphrase Sonia Johnson, it's been about 20 years since the Hyde Amendment banned federal funding for abortion--I think we have given policy change enough time. It's not going to happen. In fact, a rather large grant was given a few years back to lobby for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment. How many abortions would that have paid for? Probably a better use of money.

But I think the bigger issue for most people is that they can't wrap their brain around the idea that an unintended pregnancy can happen to THEM. And as long as everyone keeps quiet about it, we can all think that these bad things happen to women who were careless, or promiscuous, or irresponsible. That somehow they brought it on themselves. And as long as people are defended against the very real possibility (37%) that they might need an abortion, then we can't make any headway at all. Funding someone else's abortion is where we have to confront the pitiful lack of health care access, sexism, anti choice politics, and the messiness of individual lives. Too many barriers between you and your checkbook.

Well, that's the short answer. But, you could all prove me wrong by donating to your local abortion fund this season. (go to www.nnaf.org)

--bon

random thoughts from the past week

this past week began for me with a viewing of THE LAST ABORTION CLINIC on frontline on pbs.  (btw, if any of you missed it you can check it out at frontline@pbs.org.)  the creators did a marvelous job of presenting the situation in mississippi, which indeed has only one abortion clinic left.  between impossible laws, harassment, shootings, etc, there is only one clinic left for arguably the poorest state in the US.  the state that is either dead last or next to last in education, opportunity, jobs that pay a living wage has just about cut off legal abortion for most of the residents of the state.  the organization of the anti abortion movement in that state, which includes elected officials, is hoping to close the doors of the remaining clinic. 

what was missing in the program was the voice of the women who have been affected by the other clinics closing.  what i wanted to hear was what have the women done who still needed an abortion?  did they try to self-abort?  are the hospitals seeing an increase in attempted illegal abortions?  are the welfare rolls and food stamp offices seeing more women who cannot earn enough to feed and support their families?  are more women and children homeless?   are women dying as a result of lack of access to abortion services?  because one thing that we know for sure is that women have always, from the beginning of recorded time, chosen abortion when they knew it was not the right time for a new life to enter into this world through their body.  and so it will always be.  it's a question of whether the women will have an abortion safely or not.  abortion cannot ever be ended because women will seek it one way or another if that is what they need.  the did it before roe vs wade and they will do it if roe is overturned by the next supreme court.

and then yesterday  i talked to a woman named rose.  her coping skills in life did not appear to be very good.  she seemed to have a hard time just getting through a day as she described her life to me.  her long time boy friend, who is also the father of her son, left as soon as he heard she was pregnant again.  rose is in her 20's but does not have marketable skills that would allow her to earn a  living for her and her son.  and the one person in her life who offers her some help is her mother, who is herself pushed beyond her ability to cope.  when we told rose that we were unable to help her with an abortion because her pregnancy was too far advanced, she lost what little composure she had and became hysterical.  i told her that she could still get an abortion somewhere else and offered to help her with the appointment.  i also suggested adoption to her because i knew right away that with no money or other resources, getting it together in time for an abortion did not look likely.  but she said that she could not risk continuing the pregnancy because she had tried mutliple ways and multiple times to self abort so she doubted that the pregnancy could be normal, and therefore, could be unadoptable.  i could tell that, without help, rose would not be able to manage so i called the hospital to try to get her an appointment there and another counselor and i began calling all of the national funds to see what we can come up with for rose.  of course, we refunded her money to her, but it was not quite enough for the service she requires while being all the money she and her mom have in the world.  she needs only $135 dollars, which is not much, but it makes the difference in whether she can have an abortion or will have a child that she will not be able to manage.  there are so many women like rose who manage to get most of the money together but just cannot get the last piece of it.  plus having to travel to receive services and paying for gas is increasingly prohibitive.

i know that bon has written here before about the various national funds that exist to help women get the last little bit of the money together for their abortion.  because many of the readers of this blog might like to write a check at this time of year as your holiday charity donation, i urge you to consider one or more of the funds listed below.  i promise you that your money will go a long way in helping the poorest of women to take a step that could save them and their families from hunger, even homelessness in the most dire sitations; constant worry, deprivation in other situations.  many women are forced to choose paying the rent or having an abortion, having food on the table or an abortion, or having christmas for their other kids or an abortion.  please do consider them as you write your holiday checks. 

here are some funds for you to consider:

THIRD WAVE                                     WRRAP   

511 w 25th street    #301                   15030 ventura blvd #19-624

new york, ny  10001                           sherman oaks, ca  91403

                      

a different perspective

i recently returned from a visit to a third world country, a country where abortion is illegal.  but just as in the US before abortion was legal, many thousands of abortions are performed daily in this other country.  the main difference between abortion here and abortion there is that there women die from abortion there while here death is so rare as to be nearly non-existent.  in fact, when a previous republican president felt that the rumors about the dangers of abortion needed to be proven false or proven true, he set up a major investigation.   he was shocked at just how safe abortion is in the US.

however, women in other countries in which abortion is illegal do not have access to either the doctors or the pills that can provide a safe abortion and therefore often die in the  process.  whether they are inserting non-sterile objects into their uterus or buying pills on the street said to cause a miscarriage or going to "witch doctors" or going to the equivalent of the "back alley abortionist", women know that they may live or die in the process of the abortion.  (note:  if you have never seen what it used to be like in this country, you might want to rent the movie IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK that cher made.)

it seems so hard to imagine that women might choose to have an illegal abortion, risking a prison sentence or even death, but it's true.  the same was true in this country before abortion became legal.  and of course, just as in this country, the women are of all ages, all socio-economic groups.  wealthier women may have more options, but they too are still at enormous risk if they are caught having an abortion in this other country.  hundreds of women die every single day in the process of illegal abortion somewhere in the world, many more daily deaths than make the news about other causes of death. for example, if people die a plane crash or the war in iraq, it's in the news.  yet you never hear about these women's deaths.

for students of history, certain policies of the past teach us lessons.  for example, in romania not too long ago, women were checked monthly to be sure that they got their period.  if they did not, meaning that they were pregnant, they were forced to continue the pregnancy whether they wanted to or not.  as a result, hundreds of thousands of babies were put into orphanages.  but there was no follow-up policy for their care, resulting tragically in those children starving, pretty much living in cage-like cribs.  an economist has written a book that seems to prove that right here in our own country crime has fallen for the last decade and a half because women who were not ready to accept all that motherhood would require of them were able to have legal abortions starting back in 1973. 

i know that there are some people who believe that women who do not want to be pregnant should not have sex.  they believe that sex should occur only when a pregnancy is hoped for.  but pregnancies do occur to those who do not want to be pregnant.  many women, in third world countries or right here in the good ole USA, are forced to have sex against their will.  still others are quite happy to be having sex and are using birth control.  last year a special report in TIME magazine on sex in america showed that "an active sex life can lead to a longer life, better heart health, an improved ability to ward off pain, a more robust immune system and even protection against certain cancers, not to mention lower rates of depression." 

but whether intended or not, whether you find sex pleasurable or not, pregnancy can occur.  whether you are a 24 year old widow with 6 starving children in central africa, or you are a new orleans hurricane victim with an unknown future, or you are just not ready for a child right now, abortion will be the choice of some women.  there is a saying that goes all the way back to pre-historic times that "women have always known when it is the right time to bring forth new life from their body". 

and so it will always be.  regardless of the risks, whether illegal or legal, in every country in the world, abortion has always been with us.  seeing once again the risks associated with illegal abortion that have been nearly forgotten in this country reminded me that women know what is best for them at any particular time in their lives.

money and attitude

I like to think of my self as a pretty calm, unflappable person, but every once in a while something seems so outrageous to me that I go on a rant. Well, today, this woman, who we found was 12 1/2 weeks came to us for help. She did not qualify for the state insurance which would have covered the abortion because she made a couple of hundred a month too much for the cut off.

So, we reduced our fee to half. She asked her supervisor for an advance on her weekly income of $200. She said she could give us $150. Our clinic has a fund and we gave her $50 toward the fee. Now she only needed $90.

There are over 100 funds in the US especially for women who need financial help to get an abortion. Their group is called the National Network of Abortion Funds and their website is www.nnaf.org. Each fund is always strapped for money but they raise what they can on volunteer power and staff funding requests with mostly volunteers. Since there are so many, case management is done by a national hotline.

Our patient, Tawna, called me in tears after talking to them. "They said they don't have any money," she cried, "I just can't have another baby!! I have two, and I am working, and I just moved here."
So, I called the hotline. They wanted to know what her situation was, "if there was something unusual going on. And what about her partner, did he know that he would be responsible for child support payments for the next 18 years?"

One thing we cannot stand when we give out money from our fund is the sob stories. We say, "Don't tell me the desperate straits of every person. If you say she needs our $50, it's yours if we have it." It feels so demeaning to lay someone's life mess out there for everyone, as if your story might not be good enough. But I found myself arguing Tawna's case, telling them all about her situation, how her b/f wanted her to have it and wasn't in support of her having an abortion. About how she had asked her mother, her sister, had no friends here. Well, this woman on the phone said, well, do you have any jewelry, clothing, or a TV to pawn? Apparently working poor was not enough for them. (She did have a TV in her home, but it didn't belong to her.) Anyway, ultimately, she gave me more numbers to call so that I could call these funds myself, which I thought was her job.

So I called a fund that was based in a Planned Parenthood. After telling Tawna's sob story to three different people I talked to a Veep in charge of something or other, who said she would get back to me. Which she did, only to tell me that since they had not referred the patient to us, their fund could not help us.

Finally, I spoke to the NY Abortion Access Fund. I left a message with Tawna's "story" and a woman named Shawn called me back promptly. She didn't want all the gritty details of her life, she wanted to know how much we needed. "90 bucks," I said. "No problem," she said. I love these people!!!

OK, I admit I was ticked at the "I-just-had-my-soy-double-shot-cappucino" attitude of the first two people. But on reflection, I am angry that women have to grovel for healthcare, be the sob story in someone's day, so they can fundraise a paltry amount to save a few women from forced motherhood. And remember, Medicaid covers abortion in a very few states, so if you are poor, basically, you don't have access to abortion. And, once I calmed down, I am sorry anyone has to be the tough guy who decides who gets money and who doesn't.

So, here is an invitation. Get out your checkbooks and write the most generous check you can to the NY Abortion Access Fund PO Box 7569 FDR Station NYNY 10150 www.nyaff.org or to the National Network of Abortion Funds at www.nnaf.org and look up the nearest fund near you. And tell THEM to be as generous as THEY can, and not just with their money.

-bon

against the odds 2

my last post, i thought, was the story of a courageous young woman, who without much help. is raising herself and her child.  it was the story of a young woman who is hoping, against the odds, that she can make it.  her multiply challenged child would be a daunting responsibility for a woman twice her age with a partner there to help.  but jessica is pretty much on her own.  i guess i am wondering why she, the subject of my post, got lost in the ensuing dialogue.

i wonder sometimes how it happened that women became devalued in our society.  there were a couple of times in the past century when women were real powerhouses in this country:  early in the last century, they marched, they orated, they pleaded, they demanded until women got the right to vote.  it was the women who held the households together during the great depression.  then in ww2, they "manned" the factories keeping the economy going until the men returned.  for a while they disappeared until the rise of feminism that lobbied for equal pay.  then women gained control over their own bodies for the first time in the history of this country when birth control became accessible and abortion was legalized.   i am baffled about exactly how women became almost invisible again.  is it just a cyclical thing or what?  perhaps some of the historians out there can explain it to us.

i must admit i do wonder.  at what point do these babies, who do grow up to be men and women, become "worth" less?  are they only of "value" when they are in utero or newborn?  all across the country, it is women and children who are coming to the homeless shelters.  they are the largest group of people newly homeless.  at what point do they become not worthy of saving, not worthy of advocacy?  the young woman i wrote about, the young woman of great courage and determination who wants to go to medical school, who is there for her?  she has no support system.  why are there not  people standing up to say that they will help to change the system so that she can get the education she needs to be a productive member of society?  she is struggling fiercely.  maybe she'll make it; maybe she won't.  but where are her advocates?  and for the millions of women just like her.  at what age did she and her needs cease to exist?

lou