I can't imagine there are many of these anniversaries left. The reproductive rights community is fully prepared for a post-Roe country. That will surely be a dark day: a victory for religious interests over personal freedom, a mighty leap backwards for women's equality, a deepening of the overall backwards movement of the country.
But in a very real sense, it won't be a leap at all, but a continuation of a steady regression. Women with resources will be able to obtain abortions. Women without will find a way around it, or they won't. In other words, it will be just like it is right now, only more so.
My opponent on that annoying BBC interview dismissed my statement that reproductive freedom has been curtailed in the United States. He said he had lived in the US for five years, so he ought to know. I can only shake my head in sadness. Most Americans, who've never lived anywhere but the US, don't even know the extent to which reproductive freedom has been successfully attacked.
I say it all the time, but it's worth repeating: for millions of American women, Roe is already history.
From last year's post:
For more information, and how you can help:Please note: this blog is not intended as a forum to discuss the morality of abortion. Please respect that.
To make a donation that is only used to help a low-income woman obtain an abortion, and to read about the financial obstacles, visit National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF).
To learn more about the political side of this issue, or to make a donation to help organizing efforts, try these excellent organizations:
NARAL Pro-Choice America
the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project
Planned Parenthood Federation of America
To learn more about reproductive rights, which includes access to sex education, family planning and contraception, you can't do better than the Alan Guttmacher Institute.
And to read about one grassroots effort to help women exercise their human, civil and legal right to control their bodies, check out these stories about the Haven Coalition of New York City (she says proudly):
"Shelter From The Storm", by Lynn Harris, from Salon (Salon.com free day pass needed)
"Emergency Landing", by Jennifer Block, from the Village Voice
"East Village Mameles Marching For Choice" by Marjorie Ingall, originally published in The Forward
5 comments:
No preaching from me, we're basically on the same page.
My ultimate goal is to eliminate the need for most abortions but we in the states don't seem to be getting very far finding common ground with the wingnuts.
The same gang who oppose choice here usually oppose birth control and comprehensive sex education among other things. It's discouraging.
The same gang who oppose choice here usually oppose birth control and comprehensive sex education among other things.
Because - in my not very humble opinion - their goal is not to save pregnancies or fetuses or even babies. It's to control women - to limit women's choices. They're anti-woman and anti-sex.
My ultimate goal is to eliminate the need for most abortions
I'm glad you said "most". :) Because even with excellent access to affordable birth control (which we know doesn't exist in the US), abortion would still be necessary. It always has been and it always will be.
Sure, and I wouldn't change the laws such as we have in California which, as I said, was ahead of Roe even back then. We have almost no restrictions including parental notification although that has been tried at the polls.
Abortion should always be the woman's choice without interference from the state. But, to many (such as me years ago) it's a painful choice and if it could be avoided by preventing pregnancy, so much the better.
I have said many times that the religious right uses the threat of pregnancy and STD as a club. Pregnancy and disease are a punishment for not following the "rules". "You made your bed, now lie in it" is almost as common a statement today as it was when I was a girl.
I have a tendency (my friends laugh) to turn a comment into a post of its own and I may have been a little too brief explaining what I was trying to say.
Of course I agree with you.
That was an excellent article.
And I agree, its about control.
This is a topic that enrages me so I'll just leave it at that.
This is a topic that enrages me so I'll just leave it at that.
Me too. It's one reason I refuse to debate it on this blog. It's too enraging.
Thanks Kyahgirl. :)
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