Tag: reproductive rights

Before Roe vs Wade

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Janet Gotkin remembers a time when young women had unsafe abortions…

“I was 37. I had two children and I found myself pregnant. There was no question in my mind I did not want to have another baby. My husband did not want another baby,” Gotkin said.

She said “it’s time to say the word ‘abortion…’”

Gotkin, a retired librarian and research entrepreneur, said whether legal or not, abortion has always been with us and will continue to be.

“Abortion has been available in home remedies for a millennia. The first recorded abortion came from ancient Egypt thousands of years ago. When people talk about ending abortion, they really talk about banning legal abortion with safe practitioners,” she said.

Just as an aside, before you think this was a problem for women alone…jive laws like Roe vs Wade were applied to men as well. As a young man in New England, when I had a vasectomy it was just as illegal as an abortion. My urologist swore me to secrecy. All the religious dogma applied to the law-writers in my home state’s legislature. They lived up to every piece of the non-science pie, perfectly willing to ignore any citizen’s rights.

Ontario women get free access to abortion pill starting August 10th

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❝ The Ontario government says it is giving women in the province more choice over their reproductive health by covering the cost of Mifegymiso, commonly referred to as an abortion pill, starting on Aug.10.

Mifegymiso, also known by the name RU-486, is a two-drug combination of mifepristone and misoprostol that can be used to terminate a pregnancy up to 49 days.

❝ It was approved in July 2015 after a lengthy study by Health Canada. It has slowly become available for distribution in Canada since then…

❝ The executive director for Planned Parenthood Toronto was also quoted in the announcement, applauding the government’s commitment.

“In over 60 countries, for nearly 30 years, Mifegymiso has been a safe and accessible abortion option. Provincial funding for reliable medical abortion is the right decision,” said Sarah Hobbs-Blyth…

❝ New Brunswick and Alberta also cover Mifegymiso, and the Quebec government has said it plans to do so by this fall.

New Brunswick was first – in April. Province by Province, the nation of Canada lives up to their government’s promise for equal opportunity for Canadian women to run their own lives. One of these decades, I imagine the United States will figure out that democracy applies equally.

Depending on whether you have health insurance – and if this is covered – you pay as little as $0 in the United States – plus the cost of your insurance, of course. Can’t leave the poor insurance companies out of the transaction. You may also have to pay as much as $800. Reproductive rights are allowed by federal law. Congress hasn’t decided to protect them in all states.

Texas sets the standard for Republican lies about abortion

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Click to enlarge — Rena Schild/Shutterstock

❝ Despite suffering a major defeat at the Supreme Court this past June, Texas simply can’t stop — won’t stop — undermining reproductive rights. Earlier this month, the Texas Department of State Health Services released an updated edition of its abortion booklet — ironically titled “A Woman’s Right to Know” — which unapologetically promotes debunked links between abortion, breast cancer, and adverse psychological risks.

❝ A pregnant person considering termination in the Lone Star state may very well believe that her physical and mental health are at risk if she obtains an abortion. Texas already requires a 24-hour waiting period for abortion, after mandated counseling that includes information on breast cancer, fetal pain and mental health effects. But the updated DSHS booklet spreads further misinformation.

With regards to mental health, the booklet says, “Women report a range of emotions after an abortion. This can include depression or thoughts of suicide. Some women, after their abortion, have also reported feelings of grief, anxiety, lowered self-esteem, regret, sexual dysfunction, avoidance of emotional attachment, flashbacks and substance abuse.”…

Everything an otherwise sensible person feels after voting for Trump. Har.

❝ …Not only does promoting such misleading information stigmatize a common medical procedure that 1 in 3 U.S. women will have, but it also directly impacts the quality and availability of abortion care. Anti-choice legislators routinely use the mental health myth to pass restrictions on abortion, from mandatory waiting periods and counseling to gestational limits on abortion…

Ultimately, there is no right or wrong way to feel after having an abortion; every person’s experience is unique and valid. State legislators and governments would do well to finally acknowledge this, and abandon the harmful myths that drive legislation designed to make women feel bad about their decisions.

I wonder if the Republican Party will ever get round to abandoning the 19th Century religious claptrap that mandates their patriarchal War on Women and Women’s Rights? I realize that offering scientific and social proof means nothing to spooky, fearfilled mice. But, just stepping back and peering with open eyes at decades of failed ideology might eventually make an impression. Even on a Texas Republican.

Federal judge crushes “moderate Republican” John Kasich’s latest attempt to defund Planned Parenthood

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❝ A federal judge on Friday blocked an Ohio law that would have defunded Planned Parenthood — by kicking it out of state grant programs for public health and education services, like maternal health and HIV prevention programs.

“Today’s ruling supports the rights of all Ohioans to access needed health care,” said Iris E. Harvey, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, in a statement. “This law would have been especially burdensome to communities of color and people with low income who already often have the least access to care.”

❝ …Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says he will appeal, blah, blah, blah…Not only was Planned Parenthood a major provider of these health services that couldn’t easily be replaced but the bill was also written so poorly that it could have accidentally defunded Ohio’s public health departments in the process of trying to go after Planned Parenthood…

❝ The law would have blocked Planned Parenthood, and other entities connected to abortion services in almost any way, from receiving funding for:

The “Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies” program that supports mostly black mothers before, during, and after pregnancy. The program is aimed at reducing abysmally high infant mortality rates in Ohio, which are the highest in the nation for black Americans

Several federal programs that help low-income people access breast exams, Pap smears, and screenings and treatment for STIs and HIV

Funds from the Violence Against Women Act to provide education for high school–age youth, including youth who are in jail or foster care, on domestic violence, intimate partner violence, and healthy relationships

“The defunding law in Ohio would have stopped Planned Parenthood from providing HIV tests, cancer screenings, and assistance for poor mothers with newborn infants,” said Kellie Copeland, president of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio…

❝ Attorney General DeWine did claim — falsely, as it turned out — that Planned Parenthood improperly disposed of fetal remains…The state of Ohio was forced to pay Planned Parenthood’s legal fees as a result.

Couldn’t happen to a more representative leader of liars and bigots. America’s conservative politicians – mostly led by Republican godly pretenders like John Kasich – specialize in a War on Women that ranges from rationalizing inequality in wages to blocking access to education, health and well-being.

Illegal abortions are killing women in developing countries and restrictions demanded by the USA make it worse

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❝ In developing countries, the maternal mortality rate is a staggering 239 per 100,000 women, with an estimated 303,000 women dying in 2015. One in 10 of all maternal deaths are caused by unsafe abortions; an estimated 20 million unsafe abortions are performed every year.

❝ We know that providing access to legal terminations would stop women dying, but this remains an issue that provokes huge debate. Women who can’t access them legally still have abortions, but they have to pay bankrupting sums, often risking their lives.

Backstreet abortions are usually done in an unclean and unsafe environment. If they don’t kill women, they often put them in hospital with horrific complications, leaving them infertile, facing major abdominal surgery and enormous medical bills.

❝ What is stopping women from accessing safe abortions? The first is restrictive laws in their own countries, which can extend to a ban…Ludicrously, this problem is compounded by the fact that countries with the most restrictive abortion laws often have the poorest family planning provision.

❝ The second barrier is the tight regulation governing donor aid. The US has a ban on any of its funding being spent on terminations for women. The Helms amendment, a 43-year-old law, stipulates that abortions cannot be funded as a method of family planning. This means that no US foreign aid is spent on the provision of abortions or even advising or promoting abortion services for women. Recent headlines suggest that the US will not even allow its funds to be used to provide terminations for women who have been raped by Isis fighters…

❝ We know that abortions, when performed legally, are cheap and safe. Yet the grim reality is that tens of thousands of women who die in the developing world each year from unsafe abortions do so because policymakers have decided their lives are not worth saving.

With changes in this policy, maternal mortality could be reduced for a low cost. The technology exists and is affordable. A misoprostol pill that induces an early stage abortion costs less than a dollar. This is not an issue of resources and funding, but a value judgment on what women may or may not do with their lives.

Another look back to the world of the Republican Party and the ideology of patriarchal religion held dear to the heart of 19th Century conservatives.

The United States still relies on a model generated by a religious bigot who hated equal rights for non-white Americans as much as he opposed reproductive rights for women. Jesse Helms was a racist thug kept in office beyond any reasonable function except to stand in opposition to the concept of equal opportunity for class after class of Americans. The Republican Party still honors his memory.

Women are calling Indiana’s Republican governor to talk about their periods

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You will obey or go to jail!

❝ For the past week, women have been calling and emailing the office of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to tell him about their periods. In detail.

“My flow seems abnormally heavy”

“My name is Sue Magina.”

The epic trolling effort comes from members of the Facebook group Periods for Pence, launched after Pence recently signed a new anti-abortion bill into law.

❝ Some of the calls are gross-out moves that mock the overall idea of legislators meddling with women’s health care. Pence thinks he knows better than my gynecologist, the joke goes, so maybe I should start coming to him with my reproductive health issues!…

But there’s also a very specific critique of Indiana’s new law going on here.

❝ The bill signed by Pence (and written by state Rep. Casey Cox, who is now also getting calls) has some pretty shocking provisions. One of them basically forces women to seek funerary services for a fetus — no matter if she has had an abortion or a miscarriage, and no matter how far along the pregnancy was. All fetal tissue has to be cremated or buried, which has never been required in any state law before…

So by telling Pence about their periods, women are simply being good citizens who are being extra careful not to run afoul of the new law. It sounds absolutely absurd, and it is. But it’s also what happens when you take a law as bizarre and medically incoherent as Indiana’s to its logical conclusion…

❝ Notably, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) just filed a lawsuit on behalf of Planned Parenthood to block the new law before it takes effect July 1. The ACLU says the law unconstitutionally invades a woman’s privacy and interferes with her protected decision to have an abortion.

Not that Republicans give a damn about anyone’s privacy, not that the Party of NO thinks any woman has the right to make decisions about her own reproductive system. Paternalist, patriarchal, backwards as any superstitious git’s fear of science – or democracy – today’s Republican Party has devolved into the worst possible example of fear and prejudice masquerading as a political party.

FDA agrees with doctors, not Republicans, on abortion pill.

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❝ On Wednesday, the medical abortion pill got a new label from the Food and Drug Administration—one that finally reflects the way doctors have been prescribing it for years. In the process, Republicans lost at least one strategy that they’ve used to block women’s access to abortion.

❝ In the political tug-of-war over this pill — as in most every fight over abortion — legislators have inserted themselves into consummately routine aspects of medical practice. In this case, they interfered with the common and totally legal practice of off-label prescription, in which doctors use the most up-to-date medical information and their own best instincts to dictate how patients should use a drug, deviating from often outdated FDA guidelines. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 1 in 5 prescriptions written are for off-label use. That didn’t stop Republicans from banning it in the case of the abortion pill, mifepristone, when best practice evolved beyond the guidelines that the FDA wrote upon first approving the drug in 2000.

❝ Mifepristone (brand name Mifeprex) terminates pregnancy by blocking the necessary hormones; doctors prescribe it with a second pill, misoprostol, which induces contractions to start what resembles a heavy period. When the FDA originally wrote the protocol for the drug, it specified a dose of 600 milligrams. Over the years, however, doctors have found that a 200-milligram dose is just as effective and causes fewer unpleasant side effects… Republicans…passed laws in six states — still in effect in North Dakota and Ohio—that forced practitioners to stick to the FDA guidelines or stop offering the procedure altogether.

❝ The new FDA guidelines vindicate doctors, embracing the 200-milligram regimen and reflecting several other changes in the way practitioners have been prescribing the drug that broaden women’s access to abortion…

❝ The new label for mifepristone also says that the drug should be “ordered, prescribed and dispensed by or under the supervision of a healthcare provider who prescribes and who meets certain qualifications.” Crucially, the guidelines do not contain the word physician. Here, the FDA has given at least subtle backing to the argument that women’s health groups—and the World Health Organization—have been making for years: that midlevel providers, such as midwives and nurse practitioners, should be able to administer medical abortions….As abortion clinics across the country continue to close because of targeted GOP legislation, expanding the circle of who can prescribe this pill could be invaluable for many women.

Good news for everyone who wants their healthcare to be guided by modern medicine, sound science – instead of Republican politicians, pundits and populists mired in the backwaters of history and hysteria.

Colorado Planned Parenthood reopens after terrorist rampage

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❝A Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic reopened on Monday, seeing patients nearly three months after a deadly shooting rampage at the facility left three people dead and nine wounded.

“Today, we opened our doors in Colorado Springs. We didn’t back down. We didn’t disappear. We returned, stronger and with more conviction than ever,” the clinic said in a statement.

❝The clinic was closed on Nov. 27 following a bloody five-hour siege that police said began when a gunman opened fire with a rifle outside the building and then stormed inside. He was taken into custody by law enforcement at the scene…

The facility was resuming its work providing a range of healthcare services, including abortion, to the community of Colorado Springs, Cowart said…

The gunman accused of carrying out the attack, Robert Lewis Dear, 57, faces 179 felony counts, including charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and assault.

❝In a court appearance in December, he declared himself guilty and a “warrior for the babies.” He has also told a judge he distrusts his lawyers and wants to represent himself.

Like a tiny segment of Christians, Dear apparently feels he is doing the work of the God he believes in – by murdering people. Following the semantic logic of some Republican presidential candidates, that would make him a Christian terrorist.