Tag: Prevention

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Republicans now have no reason to refuse to fund family planning

Jen R

Today the House passed the Pence Amendment, which would prohibit federal family planning funds from going to providers who also perform abortions Planned Parenthood [edited after talking to Mike Pence's office]. The idea is that even though the federal funds can't go directly to abortions, paying abortion providers for other services still helps support those providers.

How many times have you heard conservatives argue against funding family planning by saying that to do so would be "giving money to Planned Parenthood"?  With that reason gone, what reason do conservative legislators have to refuse to fund family planning?

Mike Pence himself says that he doesn't oppose Title X:

"Now, I am aware that Title X family planning funds are eliminated in this bill, but eliminating Title X funding has never been my goal. I support the important work of Title X clinics across the country that provide breast cancer screenings, HIV testing, counseling, and other valuable family planning services. — Floor statement by Mike Pence

If that's true, we should lobby for another Pence Amendment — this time to restore the funding for Title X that H. R. 1 eliminates.

Blog Posts, Past Actions

Stop House Republicans from eliminating Title X family planning funding

Jen R

House Republicans are proposing big budget cuts. Of course, some things are getting cut more than others.* See that line near the bottom of the list?

Family Planning -$327M

That's the entire budget for the Title X family planning assistance program. The Title X program helps about 5 million people per year access family planning services (and thus, in many cases, avoid abortions).

Although many people believe that "family planning" is synonymous with "Planned Parenthood," note that PP received $16.9 million, or 5.7%, of the $297 million Title X budget in 2009. Most of the recipients are public health departments and other entities that do not perform abortions.

If you are a U.S. citizen, please contact your representative via email or call the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Ask your representative to vote "No" on the elimination of Title X family planning funding.

* I have Opinions about many of the cuts they're proposing as well as the ones they're not, but I'm trying to stay reasonably on-topic here.

Blog Posts

Beyond Lamenting a Miserable Failure

Marysia

The "prolife" movement as such, at least in the US–and probably elsewhere–miserably fails the sexual and reproductive rights and needs of young women. Instead of helping young women to prepare for and live healthy, happy sex lives and prevent unintended pregnancies and abortions, its sex-negativity and slut-shaming put them directly in harm's way. This story by Andrea Grimes is one bit of evidence. Realistically, what can those of us who believe in nonviolent sexual and reproductive choice do to serve young women's needs and undo the considerable harm done in the name of "respecting life"? Personally, I have been speaking out on this subject for over 25 years now. And I feel like I'm just beating my head on a brick wall.

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Stop the abuse of the women who feed us

Jen R

This Alternet article highlights an important report from the Southern Poverty Law Center on the exploitation of immigrant women in the U.S. food industry. Of particular interest to reproductive peace activists is Section 3, entitled "Sexual Violence: A Constant Menace." The SPLC found that:

  • In a recent study of 150 women of Mexican descent working in the fields in California’s Central Valley, 80% said they had experienced sexual harassment. That compares to roughly half of all women in the U.S. workforce who say they have experienced at least one incident.
  • While investigating the sexual harassment of California farmworker women in the mid-1990s, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that “hundreds, if not thousands, of women had to have sex with supervisors to get or keep jobs and/or put up with a constant barrage of grabbing and touching and propositions for sex by supervisors.”
  •  A 1989 article in Florida indicates that sexual harassment against farmworker women was so pervasive that women referred to the fields as the “green motel.” Similarly, the EEOC reports that women in California refer to the fields as “fil de calzon,” or the fields of panties, because sexual harassment is so widespread.
  •  Due to the many obstacles that confront farmworker women — including fear, shame, lack of information about their rights, lack of available resources to help them, poverty, cultural and/or social pressures, language access and, for some, their status as undocumented immigrants — few farmworker women ever come forward to seek justice for the sexual harassment and assault that they have suffered.
  •  In interviews for this report, virtually all women reported that sexual violence in the workplace is a serious problem.

Poverty and undocumented status leave these women vulnerable to sexual abuse that they can neither refuse nor report without facing harsh reprisals.

The report also found that farmworkers are exposed to such high doses of pesticides that their health — and, if they are preganant, the health of their unborn children — is at serious risk. Within a seven-week period in late 2004, three children with severe birth defects were born to women who worked in the tomato fields of a single grower.

What can you do? The Alternet article recommends several steps that individuals can take:

But as both Alternet and the SPLC point out, individual actions aren't going to be enough. We need public policy that protects workers from abuse regardless of their immigration status. SPLC has specific recommendations, including bill numbers in some cases. If you live in the United States, please help stop the abuse of the women who help supply your food.

Blog Posts

Update on rape language in H.R. 3

Jen R

Politico is reporting that the language about "forcible rape" will be dropped from the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act and replaced with the language used in the Hyde Amendment, which does not create different categories of rape.

It's good to see that at least some people get it:

[…] the distinction between types of rape mystified some GOP aides.

“Such a removal would be a good idea, since last I checked, rape by definition is non-consensual,” said one aide.

Exactly.

Blog Posts, Past Actions

Dear Congressman Smith: Rape is rape

Jen R

January 29, 2011

Dear Congressman Smith:

I am writing to you about H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. I ask you to consider that the bill’s language on rape is potentially harmful to all women, whether or not they are seeking abortions.

H.R. 3 specifies, but does not define, “forcible” rape. Because neither the bill nor the Federal criminal code defines “forcible” rape, it is impossible to be sure of what this means. Does it include date rape? Rape in which the victim was drugged to the point of being unable to consent? Rape in which the victim was asleep or unconscious? Rape in which the victim was threatened with force, even if that force was not ultimately used? Rape in which the victim was mentally impaired and could not consent?

All of these situations are rape. Women who have had these crimes committed against them, whether or not they become pregnant, are harmed if we as a society deem their experiences to be something less than “real” rape.

I am asking you to clarify the language of the bill. Rape is sex without consent. Sex without consent is rape. Period.

Thank you for your time.

Blog Posts

Contraception Reduces Abortion: The Evidence

Marysia

Some who conflate contraception with abortion and oppose both are gloating over a study from Spain. It reports that as contraceptive use increased, the abortion rate went up.

The researchers concluded only that the reasons for the increase in abortion await further investigation, which is the responsible thing for scientists to say when they do not know yet.

However, the conflaters quickly decided that it must be because people were having more feckless, casual, irresponsible sex; because they can't be trusted to learn how to use family planning methods effectively; and of course because so many of those contraceptives are really abortifacients.

Other hypotheses are far more plausible.

The bulk of the available evidence shows that in almost all situations worldwide, contraception reduces abortion rates.

One observed exception: if contraceptive services are increased, but they do not keep pace with people's desire & need for smaller family sizes, the abortion rate may go up, temporarily, and then finally decline when programming catches up. Scaling up family planning programs in anticipation of such an increase can help prevent it. In other words, more contraception does result in fewer abortions.

The bulk of the scientific evidence also shows that IUDs and hormonal contraceptives truly prevent conceptions rather than implantations. Please read this report from Family Health International, as well as this testimony from the World Health Organization from the debate in the Philippines over reproductive health legislation. The International Consortium for Emergency Contraception publishes this informative fact sheet on EC.

Other possible factors for the increased abortion rate in Spain merit investigation. For example, how prevalent were reproductive coercion and other forms of violence against the women studied? Women who are subjected to gender-based violence are far more likely to experience contraceptive sabotage, unintended pregnancies, and abortions.

And how did providers and communities educate, motivate, and support contraceptive users? Were they advised on how to share decisionmaking about family planning with their partners? On how to close the gap as much as possible between common use and correct and consistent use effectiveness rates?

These factors are harder to research than rates of contraceptive prevalence and abortion, but such research could boost the lifesaving effects of more family planning access.

Blog Posts, Past Actions

Not Impossible

Marysia

Marge Berer, editor of the journal Reproductive Health Matters, makes this highly problematic claim: "In my opinion, it is only possible to be anti-abortion if you will never be the one left holding the baby, nor be around to see or take responsibility for what happens to those who are." Really?

What about All Our Lives supporters and kindred spirits, in the present and in the past, who not only believe but live their lives as if prolife means what it says: the taking on, not the disavowal, of such active, thorough responsibilities? We can't possibly exist?

If respect and reverence for all life means anything, it means that you bother to hold the baby, or at the very least offer your helping hands to any and all baby holders, in your own family, community, nation, planet. You not only bear witness to their situations-you do whatever you can to ease their difficulties.

And that set of conjoint responsibilities begins towards both mother and child as soon as you know about the pregnancy. In fact, you should have long since already assumed the responsibilities that began well before the present pregnancy.

With the mother's and the father's own conceptions and beyond, with nonviolent and fully socially supported parenting, with sex education for all stages of life, with measures to prevent and abolish reproductive coercion and violence against women, with complete, informed, voluntary access to family planning.

Marge Berer, we do exist. We are not impossibilities by definition-let alone decree. And if you would like our help in reducing abortion, just ask.

Blog Posts

15 warning signs of reproductive coercion (and 6 steps you can take to protect your health)

Jen R

Great article by Lynn Harris at sexreally.com about recognizing and resisting reproductive coercion: 15 Warning Signs He Doesn’t Support Your Contraceptive Choices.

A sample:

  1. Does he refuse to wear a condom? “That’s near-universal with reproductive coercion, and can start on sexual-date-one,” says Heather Corinna, founder and director of Scarleteen and author of S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College.
  2. Does he equate birth control with cheating? As one woman (“Erika”) reported to the FVPF: “He said the pill made women want to have sex all the time, and that I’d cheat because I wouldn’t need to use a condom.”
  3. Do you go behind his back to get contraception? “Erika” snuck to a clinic for the pill. “For a year, I made sure he never saw them,” she says.

As they say, read the whole thing. And then pass it along to someone who might need this information.

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.