Personally, not speaking for All Our Lives as a whole, I feel a deep ambivalence about the focus on the Roe v. Wade anniversary in general and the March for Life in particular. That said, All Our Lives believes that being pro-life means being pro-everybody’s-life. That’s why we support the For Peace & ALL Life Meetup and March group at today’s event. Thanks for representing, folks, and keep warm!
Happy New Year!
The last year has been a difficult one for All Our Lives. 2013 marked our first year without our co-founder, Mary Krane Derr, who passed away late in 2012. Her insights, dedication, and fellowship are simply irreplaceable.
We miss you, Mary.
It’s been a rebuilding year, but we’re still moving forward. Looking ahead to 2014, we have a new board member and some new projects in the works. In particular, we are collaborating with another organization on a new outreach opportunity that I will be very excited to announce soon! I hope that for everyone who had a rough year in 2013, 2014 will be kinder to you.
And if you had a great 2013, may 2014 be even better!
By now, you’ve probably heard that the maker of the European emergency contraception pill NorLevo has changed its labeling to indicate that it is not effective in women weighing more than 80kg (176 pounds), and that it’s less effective in women who weigh 75 kg (165 pounds) or more.
What you may not have heard is that the NorLevo label was also updated to reflect the current scientific consensus on its method of action. The label now reads:
NorLevo works by stopping your ovaries from releasing an egg. It cannot stop a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb.
NorLevo is identical to Plan B One-Step, which is sold in the United States. The FDA should allow the manufacturers of Plan B, NextChoice, and other levonorgestrel emergency contraceptive pills to bring their labels up to date as well.
Our fact sheet, Emergency Contraception: The Facts Every Pro-Life Advocate Should Know, has been updated to include the news about NorLevo. Please share it with pro-lifers who are concerned about the possibility of emergency contraception acting as an abortifacient.
I don’t disagree with the rest of the paragraph, but honestly [emphasis added]:
The elitism is a big part of this, but so is the sex part. As Franke-Ruta notes, the only other coverage point that has created as much conservative ire is the contraception benefit. What do contraception and maternity coverage have in common? Both imply that the woman who is using the benefit willingly chose to have sex. It really isn’t much more complicated than that. Which is why Mankiw insists that having children is a “choice”, even though it’s not that simple. Half of pregnancies in this country are unintended. Of those, not an insignificant number result in childbirth because the woman felt that abortion was not really a choice, either because she’s been guilt-tripped by anti-choice propaganda, bullied by family members, or simply couldn’t afford to jump through the rapidly expanding number of hoops that Republicans are putting in place to keep women from abortion. When conservatives say it’s a “choice”, they are pretending that abstaining from sex is a realistic expectation to place on the majority of American women who are not members of the economic elite, full stop. That’s what this is about.
Shorter Amanda Marcotte: no woman acting according to her own free will and moral compass would ever feel that abortion was an unacceptable choice for her in the event of unintended pregnancy.
Mankiw, in the blog post Marcotte quoted, was pretty repulsive himself:
But having children is more a choice than a random act of nature. People who drive a new Porsche pay more for car insurance than those who drive an old Chevy. We consider that fair because which car you drive is a choice. Why isn’t having children viewed in the same way?
Because a child isn’t a consumer good, he or she is a human being who both needs and deserves care. Because none of that is any less true if that child’s mother could have had an abortion and didn’t. And because parenthood shouldn’t be a luxury reserved for the well-off.
A professor of Social Work in Mississippi has this genius idea for preventing teen pregnancy:
Social workers should explain to teenage females that if they get pregnant, while in middle school or high school, there is no money for prenatal care, no money for prenatal exams, no money for a birth at a hospital, no money for formula or baby food, no money for diapers.
Dr. Swindell calls this “an unconventional approach.” Yes, punishing teen moms and their children is bold and innovative.
I hope this professor doesn’t call herself pro-life, because this is a great way to guarantee more abortions.
Two recent news items highlight the need for better education about pregnancy and birth control. The first is a survey by the American College of Nurse-Midwives:
Despite the broad range of options available to women for birth control and family planning, a survey of more than 1200 US women between 18 and 45 released today by the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) shows that women do not feel knowledgeable about many of these options and have harmful misperceptions about their effectiveness. The survey also found that many women don’t feel they are able to have in-depth conversations with their health care providers to make well-informed decisions on birth control and family planning.
And what are the consequences of lack of knowledge and misperceptions?
We interviewed a sample of women obtaining abortions in the U.S. in 2008 (n=49) and explored their attitudes towards and beliefs about their risk of pregnancy. We found that most respondents perceived themselves to have a low likelihood of becoming pregnant at the time that the index pregnancy occurred. Respondents’ reasons for this perceived low likelihood fell into four categories: perceived invulnerability to pregnancy without contraceptive use, perceptions of subfecundity, self-described inattention to the possibility of conception and perceived protection from their current use of contraception (although the majority in this subgroup were using contraception inconsistently or incorrectly).
Far too many people don’t get factual education from their schools or adequate information from their doctors about how their own bodies work. The result is unintended pregnancy and, often, abortion.
Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in the Senate, and Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Jackie Speier (D-CA), Susan Davis (D-CA), and Marcia Fudge (D-OH) in the House, have re-introduced the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act in the new Congress. PWFA would require companies to provide pregnant employees with the same types of accommodations that are required for disabled workers under the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to Casey’s office:
Currently, pregnant working women around the country are being denied simple adjustments – permission to use a stool while working a cash register, or to carry a bottle of water to stay hydrated, or temporary reassignment to lighter duty tasks – that would keep them working and supporting their families while maintaining healthy pregnancies. The legislation will close legal loopholes and ensure that pregnant women are treated fairly on the job.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act will accomplish this by requiring employers to make reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers and preventing employers from forcing women out on leave when another reasonable accommodation would allow them to continue working. The bill also bars employers from denying employment opportunities to women based on their need for reasonable accommodations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.
In recent and startling examples, Amy Crosby, a hospital cleaner in Tallahassee, Florida, was forced into unpaid leave from her job when the hospital refused to accommodate her doctor’s request that she not lift more than 20 pounds because of her pregnancy; Heather Wiseman, a retail worker in Salina, Kansas, was fired because she needed to carry a water bottle to stay hydrated and prevent bladder infections; and Victoria Serednyj, an activity director at a nursing home in Valparaiso, Indiana, was terminated because she required help with some physically strenuous aspects of her job to prevent having another miscarriage. For the well-being of pregnant workers, and for the sake of the economic stability of American families, our laws must be updated and clarified.
The National Women’s Law Center has more information in their PWFA factsheet.
Preventing pregnant mothers from having to choose between the jobs they need to provide for their families on one hand, and their own health and the health of their unborn children on the other, is pro-life. If you agree and you are in the U.S., please contact your Senators and Representatives to ask them to cosponsor the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (H.R. 1975 in the House and S. 942 in the Senate).
Here are some talking points you can use in your email and phone call:
Please let us know how your call goes, or if you get a response to your email!
Three years ago, I attended a conference at Princeton that was intended to bring pro-life and pro-choice advocates together to find common ground. Its success was, shall we say, limited. But one moment of vehement agreement came when pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike expressed frustration with politicians who talk about their opposition to abortion and respect for life while at the same time cutting funding for social welfare programs.
You see, pregnancy assistance centers can’t meet the needs of the women and children they serve on their own. One of the services many centers provide is helping mothers connect with programs like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) so they and their children can get enough to eat. Centers like Birthright in Salina, Kansas:
“If this shutdown continues, girls won’t get the vouchers they need for baby formula,” said Linda Campbell, director of Birthright. “We will have hungry babies in Salina. A lot of our clients are very low-income. If they don’t get their WIC vouchers, who knows what will happen.
“I can’t see letting our babies go hungry and starve to death.”
The shutdown has left a portion of the federal workforce furloughed and services suspended, including funding for the WIC program that helps families up to 180 percent of the poverty line.
Campbell said Birthright, a crisis pregnancy service, helps women in need, giving emergency formula and other help. She said many of her clients are on WIC.
The government shutdown isn’t just a political game — it’s hurting real women and children.
It’s not just WIC, either. Domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers that receive federal funds authorized under the Violence Against Women Act and other programs face critical losses of funding. And then there are the cancelled cancer trials, the inability of the CDC to respond quickly to a widespread salmonella outbreak, the debilitating effects of loss of income on the households of federal employees, and so many more life-diminishing effects.
Democrats for Life is challenging pro-life groups to call for an end to the shutdown. We join them in that challenge.
US supporters: Please call and ask your Representative to end the shutdown with no strings attached. You can find your House members using Contacting the Congress. Please call and make the pro-life case against the shutdown.
Starting today, people in the U.S. who need health insurance can go to healthcare.gov to enroll in a plan through their states’ new exchanges.
There’s a lot for pro-lifers to love about health insurance reform. All plans offered on the exchanges must cover prenatal care, delivery, and care for mother and baby after birth. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, most individual insurance plans didn’t cover maternity care, and women who were already pregnant often couldn’t get insurance at all.
In addition to the reform of maternity care coverage, the ACA requires insurance plans to cover a number of preventive services with no cost-sharing. These include, but are definitely not limited to:
Having these vital preventive services available without a co-payment will help more women and children live healthy lives as well as making it easier for women to avoid unintended pregnancy and abortion.
* These are currently required to be covered for women but should be available without cost-sharing to everyone, in my opinion.
U.S. supporters, if you haven’t already, please take this opportunity to email your members of Congress to ask them to cosponsor the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (H.R. 1975 in the House and S. 942 in the Senate).
Better yet, email them today and then follow up with a phone call to their offices tomorrow!
Here are some talking points you can use in your email and phone call:
See our previous post about the PWFA if you want more information. Please let us know how your call goes, or if you get a response to your email!
