Author: Jen R

Blog Posts

Reproductive health and partner abuse

Jen R

The Family Violence and Prevention Fund has a new fact sheet on reproductive health and partner abuse (PDF).

Sexual coercion and violence is a costly and pervasive problem, and women of reproductive age – in particular, those ages 16 to 24 – are at greatest risk.1 Violence limits women’s ability to manage their reproductive health and exposes them to sexually transmitted diseases. Abuse during pregnancy can have lasting harmful effects for a woman, the developing fetus and newborns. A growing body of research indicates that the strong association of intimate partner violence and unintended pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted disease results from male coercive behaviors around sex and contraception.

This is an area where I'd like to see more activism from pro-life advocates outside of the establishment Movement. Most of us agree that a woman has the right to make her own decisions about contraception, and all of us agree that she has the right to make her own decisions about whether and when to have sex. A concerted educational and activist campaign against reproductive coercion could make a real difference in the rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion — not to mention in the lives of women.

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My impressions of the Open Hearts, Open Minds and Fair Minded Words conference

Jen R

The first thing I want to say about the Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Fair Minded Words conference is this: it is remarkable to be able to discuss abortion at all without people simply retreating into (metaphorically (mostly)) armed camps. That seldom happens in the normal course of things, and the conference was valuable for bringing us all together, even if the spirit of listening was sometimes forgotten — especially near the end, when I think we were all a bit worn.

One of the conference's stated goals was to "Explore new ways to think and speak about abortion." However, much of the discussion would not have seemed out of place twenty years ago. For my part, I was intensely frustrated – to the point of anger – that the same old anti-contraception official stance of the Catholic Church was the only pro-life opinion heard on the pregnancy prevention panel. Whoever chose the speakers for that panel missed an opportunity to do something really different – bring the other 80% of pro-lifers into the conversation for a change! How can we talk about pro-life and pro-choice people working together to prevent unintended pregnancies when that many voices are shut out right from the start? We also needed to hear much more from young people, people of color, working-class people, and people with disabilities. Those voices are often not a part of the "same old" debate.

One of the most productive panels I attended was the session on supporting pregnant women. The participants were able to come to a remarkable accord both on the types of social and economic support that pregnant women need, and on many of the barriers to providing it. Pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike vocally agreed that it's hypocritical for politicians to praise the work of crisis pregnancy centers while cutting funding for the social welfare programs they rely on. Several participants also wished aloud that people who object to war could do as well as people who object to abortion have done in preventing the government from paying for it! I would have preferred for more panels to have a real-life, practical emphasis like this one. Abortion is a fascinating topic for philosophical discussion, but it's also a real issue of flesh and blood and life and death, and we must always remember that.

Next, I want to discuss the comments Marysia referred to in this post. I was finally able to watch the recording of the "From Morality to Public Policy" panel last night, and I didn't hear Helen Alvare say that bodily integrity wasn't important. I genuinely can't figure out how Ms. Thorne-Thomsen got that from her words. In fact, at about 15:00 into the video, Alvare specifically mentioned the centrality of the body to women's rights. I also appreciated Cathleen Kaveny's acknowledgment that the abortion issue isn’t just a simple matter of “It’s killing; ban it,” but involves two very legitimate interests – the mother’s bodily autonomy and the child’s life – that both need to be considered.

Unfortunately, that same panel was severely marred by David Garrow's sweeping and factually incorrect generalizations about pro-lifers in general being motivated not by desire to protect human life, but by opposition to non-procreative sex. Garrow started his presentation by admitting that he had erred in agreeing to speak at this conference, and I have to agree. He was a totally inappropriate and disrespectful panelist – at one point he even silently mocked Helen Alvare while she was speaking. The other pro-choice panelist, Dorothy Roberts, was as good as Garrow was bad. She did a wonderful job of putting abortion in the context of the intersecting oppressions faced by so many women on the basis of gender, race, class, and disability. Although I disagree with Dr. Roberts in that I think abortion itself is another form of discrimination against human beings, I wholeheartedly agree that it simply can't be understood in isolation from the social conditions that contribute to it. I would dearly love to see Dorothy Roberts and Mary Krane Derr on a panel together some day!

Was the conference a success? We probably won't know for some time. It wasn't much more than a baby step – there was still too much "talking at" and too little "listening to", and I heard a disheartening amount of prejudiced and thoughtless remarks both on panels and in casual conversation. Still, five hundred people thought it was worth their time and expense to come and talk to people they oppose on one of the most bitter subjects of the day. Personally, I got contact information from both pro-lifers and pro-choicers who want to work together on practical proposals of importance to all of us. There was talk of putting together a coalition of pro-life and pro-choice groups to oppose budget cuts for social services that help pregnant women and their children. If we can start taking steps like that together, that at least must count as a success.

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“Do you find most public discourse on abortion painful?”

Jen R

I'm excited to be attending the Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Fair Minded Words conference that will be taking place at Princeton University this Friday and Saturday. The conference is for activists on all sides of the abortion debate to:

  1. Explore new ways to think and speak about abortion. Recognizing the divisive nature of the debate, and its larger effect on public discourse, we wish to explore new words, ideas, categories, arguments and approaches for engaging with each other
  2. Approach issues related to abortion with open hearts and open minds. We wish to make a concerted effort to engage with each other with the kind of humility and quiet necessary to really listen and absorb the ideas of someone who thinks differently.
  3. Define more precisely areas of disagreement and work together on areas of common ground. Some sessions are intended to cut through the confusion and fog of the public abortion debate, by clarifying more precisely areas of disagreement, potentially highlighting areas where we can move forward.
  4. Get to know those on multiple sides of the issues more personally. In part because it is often easier to take seriously and listen to those one knows personally, we will self-consciously promote social interaction at this conference through lunches, cocktail hours and breaks.

 

One of the first things on the conference web site is: "Do you find most public discourse on abortion painful?" That's what really drew me to it. Is there anyone who finds the way we talk about abortion satisfying? I don't mean useful — I think all sorts of people find it useful — but satisfying?  Like it's really bringing out the best in us, like we're really doing our best thinking and relating to each other when we fling "baby killer!" and "woman hater!" at each other for the thousandth time? I hope not. I want to have a richer, more constructive conversation and try to find a way out of the toxic swamp we've been mired in for the last few decades. I want to talk to people who won't dismiss ideas out of hand just because they come from one of Those People. I really hope to meet other reproductive peace advocates (even if they don't call themselves that)!

If you can't come to the conference, good news! All but one of the panels will be livestreamed on the web site, as well as archived for later viewing. I make no promises about liveblogging, but I'll have my phone and hope to be tweeting (within the rules, that is).

Blog Posts

Good news on pregnancy assistance, sex ed; “common ground”?

Jen R

Good news for mothers and children: last week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the distribution of $27 million in funding to assist pregnant women. The grants will be used to help pregnant and parenting students complete their educations, serve pregnant women who are the victims of violence or stalking, and publicize resources available to teen mothers. The White House promoted this Pregnancy Assistance Fund as part of its "common ground" approach to reducing the incidence of abortion.

Robin Marty at RHRealityCheck doesn't think much of it:

Is putting in more support for pregnant women and teens common ground in trying to bring down the numbers of abortions in this country? Sure, assuming that those women did in fact want to be mothers. But there seems to be an assumption that we find common ground by converting unwanted pregnancies into wanted pregnancies, rather than trying to stop unwanted pregnancies before they are conceived.

This initiative is trying to prevent those abortions that happen because a woman believes she has no better options. Marty considers this an attempt to  "[convert] unwanted pregnancies into wanted pregnancies" and doesn't consider it an area of common ground between pro-lifers and pro-choicers. But when a woman has an abortion because she can't afford to carry her child to term, is that really an unwanted pregnancy — or is it unwanted poverty?

How's this for common ground? No woman should ever be in a position where she feels that abortion is her only choice.

Now, I do agree with Marty that we should be able to find common ground on giving people the information they need to make fully informed choices about sexuality and contraception. That brings me to the second piece of good news: for the first time since 1996, the U.S. government is funding effective, evidence-based sex education programs. To be eligible for funding, a program must "be supported by at least one study showing a positive, statistically significant effect on at least one of the following categories: sexual activity, contraceptive use, sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy or births."  There's room for improvement in those criteria, but it's a step in the right direction — away from the inaccurate, slut-shaming programs that have been getting the funds, and toward effective education.

Blog Posts

Secular views challenging abortion

Jen R

All Our Lives is neither religious nor anti-religious. We welcome people of any faith as well as nonbelievers. In light of my Point of Inquiry appearance, I'd like to direct readers to some secular or atheist views that question abortion.

Kathryn Reed's Feminist, Prolife and Atheist is a great example of a humanist, feminist challenge to abortion.

Many people think that opposition to abortion is a religious stance, and for many people this is true. For me it is not. I decided when I was thirteen that I was both an atheist and prolife. I became an atheist because I had no belief in a spiritual reality. I became prolife because my biology class taught a section about the development of the human embryo and fetus. I saw a human life as beginning at conception and stretching in one continuum until the death of that being. I saw that the inclusion of a child into society after birth (but not before) was nothing but a human convention.

When I attended college and studied anthropology, I saw this convention as part of a larger phenomenon: the practice of defining who is and who is not human. This practice is found in all cultures and though the choice of outcast is variable, it seems inevitable that someone who is biologically human will be excluded from the social definition of humanity. It is commonly known that those who are excluded are treated in ways that would be considered unthinkable otherwise. I suspect that this tendency is a perpetual weed in the garden of human society. I am not saying that this weed cannot be removed, but people who care will probably have to spend their Saturdays well into eternity walking out in their overalls to hoe if they want to keep it from choking out everything else in the garden.

Richard Stith: Arguing with Pro-Choicers or what I think of as "the Polaroid post."  Mr. Stith is himself a believer, but the argument he makes here is based entirely upon reasoning that is accessible to nonbelievers. He compares two different ways of looking at early human development, and how one's perspective colors one's view of fetal personhood.  (He also notes how religions often erroneously argued that the developing embryo or fetus was a nonperson based on lack of information.)

Here's a taste:

I submit that pro-life arguments seem absurd to any listener who has in the back of the mind a sense that the embryo or fetus is being constructed in the womb. Here's an analogy: At what point in the automobile assembly-line process can a "car" be said to exist? I suppose most of us would point to some measure of minimum functionality (viability), like having wheels and/or a motor, but some might insist on the need for windshield wipers or say it's not fully a car until it rolls out onto the street (is born). We would all understand, however, that there's no clearly "right" answer as to when a car is there. And we would also agree that someone who claimed the car to be present from the insertion of the first screw at the very beginning of the assembly line would be taking an utterly absurd position. To someone who conceives of gestation as intrauterine construction, pro-life people sound just this ridiculous. For a thing being constructed is truly not there until it is nearly complete.

SecularProlife.org was founded by a Christian who wants to work with other believers as well as nonbelievers to foreground secular arguments against abortion. They are pro-contraception and pro-sex education.

Finally, for those of you on Atheist Nexus, there is a group called Pro-Life Nonbelievers. The group welcomes discussion, but not proselytizing (either for religion or for abortion).

Blog Posts

Links: maternal mortality improvements, U.S. sex ed, All Our Lives co-founder interviewed

Jen R
  • A new report by the World Health Organization estimates that the maternal mortality rate dropped by one-third worldwide between 1990 and 2008. Although it's hard to quantify the exact reasons, there are a number of factors that likely helped bring about the decrease: the report specifically cites improvement in health systems, improved education for females, more births being attended by skilled health-care personnel, more women receiving prenatal care, and an increase in availability and use of contraception. Though this is a significant and welcome development, there is still a long way to go. An estimated 358,000 women died of pregnancy-related causes in 2008, 87% of them in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. A 15-year-old girl in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 31 chance of eventually dying from a maternal cause.
  • Only two-thirds of U.S. teens receive sex education that includes information on birth control, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control.  About 97% of teens interviewed for the National Survey of Family Growth said they received formal sex education by age 18. Formal sex education was defined as instruction at a school, church, community center or other setting that dealt with saying no to sex, prevention of sexually transmitted infections, or birth control.  Of all of the teens interviewed, 62% of boys and 70% of girls had received instruction about methods of contraception. Teens were even less likely to talk to their parents about birth control: 31% of boys and 51% of girls reported talking to their parents about methods of contraception, and only 20% of boys and 38% of girls talked to their parents about how to obtain it.
  • Last week, I was interviewed for the Point of Inquiry podcast about atheist opposition to abortion. The interview should be posted online today. I'm very grateful to Bob Price and the Center for Inquiry for the opportunity to discuss a viewpoint  that is not often heard in either anti-abortion or skeptical circles — the secular, pro-balance, pro-reproductive-peace position.
Blog Posts, Past Actions

Volunteer opportunity – help translate health information into Arabic, Hindi, and Swahili

Jen R

Google.org has launched Health Speaks, a new initiative to try to increase the amount of online health information in languages other than English. Health Speaks will begin with pilot projects in Arabic, Hindi and Swahili. Bilingual volunteers are encouraged to translate health-related Wikipedia (EN) articles into one of these three languages, using the Health Speaks website and Google Translator Toolkit. Google.org is also looking for reviewers, who will read published translations in Wikipedia to ensure that they meet sufficient quality standards.

For the first 60 days, Google.org will donate 3 US cents per English word translated to the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), the Public Health Foundation of India, and the Children's Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357 (for Swahili, Hindi and Arabic respectively), up to a maximum of US $50,000 each. Click here to read a blog entry on the new initiative.

If you speak Arabic, Hindi, or Swahili, please consider joining HealthSpeaks.  Translating information on sexual and reproductive health would be a great way to give people, especially women, power over their reproductive lives and to promote reproductive peace.

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Call for submissions: This Bridge Called My Baby: Legacies of Radical Mothering

Jen R

Via flip flopping joy comes a call for submissions for a book titled "This Bridge Called My Baby: Legacies of Radical Mothering."  The proposal is long, so please click over to FFJ to read the whole thing, but here's the kind of submission they're looking for:

We invite submissions including but not limited to the following possibilities:

* Manifestas, group poems, letters, mission statements from your crew of radical mamas or an amazing group from history
* Letters, poems, transcribed phone calls between radical mamas supporting each other
* Accounts of your experience as a radical mama
* Your experience raising children as a trans mother or parent
* Raising children in a transphobic world
* Your experiences as a single mother
* Raising genderfree babies
* Stories of resilience and oppression as welfare warriors
* Reflections on enacting radical mamacity at different ages
* Motivations for/obstacles in your practice of radical mothering
* Conversations with your kids
* Rants and rages via the eloquence of a mother-wronged
* Your experience of radical grandmothering
* Parenting children through radically queer and loving modes of support, community, belonging and resilience
* Your take on reproductive justice
* Parenting from inside prison
* Extended family (both biological and chosen)
* Life as a disabled parent
* Your experience parenting as a teenager
* Raising Boys
* Gender socialization and Parenting
* Raising Biracial children
* Raising First World children
* Self-interviews, interviews with other mamis
* Birthing experiences
* Ending child sexual abuse
* Mothering as survivors (survival and mothering)
* Mothering with and without models
* Mothering and domination
* Mama to-do lists
* Mama/kid collaborations
* Radical fathering
* Overcoming shame and silence in the practice of radical mothering
* Ambivalence, paradox, emotions, vulnerability
* Experiences of state violence/CPS
* Balancing daily survival
* Loss of children, not living with children, custody arrangements and issues
* Sharing your stories from where you live
* Everything we haven’t thought of yet! Take a deep breath and WRITE!!!!

This anthology will center the writing of mothers of color, low income mothers and marginalized mothers. [emphasis added -jr] If you have any further questions, feedback, suggestions feel free to contact us as well.

All Our Lives members and supporters have unique insights into many of these topics; please consider sharing them with the world!

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Give the UK’s international development agency your views on reproductive, maternal and newborn health

Jen R

The UK’s Department for International Development is conducting a survey on reproductive, maternal, and newborn health priorities.

People from around the world, and especially from developing nations, are encouraged to participate.  This is an opportunity for reproductive peace activists to show support for all nonviolent reproductive choices for women.