The Trouble with Abortion

I am just finishing the book, Divided We Stand, by Marjorie J. Spruill.  It was a tough book to read, but important.  The book exhaustively documents the fight for women's rights versus the fight by right-wing republican women against those rights.  I would say it is the never-ending battle between liberals and conservatives, or good and evil, but honestly, it hurts too much to admit it.

It feels to many of us these days like we are losing the war.  Whether the war is for science and education, health care, workers' rights, voting rights, minority rights, and of course, women's reproductive rights.

And, as with every battle we are fighting, it comes down to words and communication.  Fact versus lies.  And the constant planning that goes into that fight.

We don't seem to be very good at the words.  And at disseminating them.  We are late to the game and always struggling to catch up.  We are always defending ourselves, making excuses, equivocating.  We Democrats want to get in and work for people, but we aren't very good at convincing them why, or what exactly we are going to do for them.

Abortion is the most difficult battle, because it is not pretty.  You can be proud to be gay and proud to be Black.  You can brag about being in the forefront of technology and the war on cancer.  You can celebrate lives saved since the ACA was enacted.  But how do we make abortion a positive?

It took years for the women's movement to wake up and start saying "pro-choice" rather than "pro-abortion."  Meanwhile, the right wing was "pro-life."  And we let them get away with being "pro-life," even though they were also, and continue to be, against aid to women and families, affordable health care, a living wage and workers' rights, and pretty much any program that would actually be "pro-life."

And then there are the graphics.  I recall, sometime in the 80's, driving on the highway and looking up to see a van with a fetus painted on it and some ugly anti-abortion slogan.  We see them on billboards when we drive along southern and mid-western highways.  And don't even imagine that the graphics are accurate.  In 2012, this photo claiming to be of a 12-week-old fetus circulated around the internet.

From Snopes.com

Turns out, it was a hand painted resin doll.

If you have had the dubious fortune to attend or hear a legislative session when the wackos have been bussed in, you have no doubt been regaled with how God has given us the gift of life and we have no right to murder his creations.  More clever yet is when the right wing can find an actual literate woman who can testify to her choice to have her baby, and how wonderful that has been.  Especially when the argument is whether to "save the life" of a "child" with severe, life-threatening deformities.

Our South Carolina lawmakers dragged that one out in 2015, on their way to passing the abhorrent "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act."  Not only was the woman testifying that she made the choice against the recommendation of her doctor, but lo! and behold! her teenage daughter was there to testify, as proof of God's intent.  And, because our lawmakers are still forced to pretend that there is separation of church and state, this wonderful young woman was there to talk about God her own self.  And she wore some sort of pin with a baby and God message for all to see and photograph.  It was inspirational.

And then later in the hearing, a woman who chose the late-term abortion of a severely at-risk fetus testified.

At the time, The State carried not only a photo, but video, of the wonderful child.  The second woman's testimony was relegated to a couple of statements at the end.  And what else was there to do?

Recently, an anti-abortionist argued that she was forced by her boyfriend to have an abortion, and she wanted to make sure that didn't happen to anyone else.  So, she argued, she felt it was her obligation to force women to have babies rather than change a system in which a man could force a woman to have an abortion.

An abortion is a right, but it is nothing we want to brag about.  And that is the quandary.  There is no way we can dress it up, any more than we can dress up cancer.  So we have let those who wish to take that right away from us attack us with horrible words, about killing babies, about how fetuses can feel pain, about how they can pleasure themselves in utero, control the issue.  They may have no facts to back them up, but, boy howdy! do they have the imagery.

Meanwhile, lately, with the anti-abortion activists stooping to ever lower lows, women -- and men -- are beginning to step up and fight back.  More women are coming forward to admit that they have had abortions, there are more important books written on the subject (Pro by Katha Pollitt and  Life's Work by Dr. Willie Parker) and young women are getting angry about the efforts to shame and control them.  Comedians like Amy Schumer have brought abortion out of the shadows with absolutely outrageous jokes about it.

Fact:  Abortion is a safe and minor surgical procedure.  Nobody wants to say it for fear of being thought callous, but it is like having a tooth pulled.  It becomes a Big Deal when we bring all our emotional baggage to it, which we usually do.

Fact:  It may be a minor procedure, but it is not fun, and not a choice we enjoy making, even if the government were to pay for it, which it doesn't.  We don't look forward to getting a tooth pulled either.

Fact:  Choosing an abortion may be the best option.  Or it may not.  But as Dr. Willie Parker says, every woman has the right to the facts, and to make the choice herself as best she can.

Fact:  As those sanctimonious right wingnuts make it more difficult for women to have an abortion, more women are dying.  While Texas legislators keep data about its rise in maternal death rate cloaked in secrecy, it has just been found to have the highest pregnancy related death rate in the developed world.  The same people who claim to be "pro-life" are on the forefront of taking away health care.  Women who choose to be pregnant are at risk.  Women who would get an abortion if they had a real choice are at risk.

Fact:  Women are perfectly capable of making decisions about their children.  They are also perfectly capable of making decisions about whether to have children.  It is ironic that lawmakers on the one hand have decided it is up to them to control women's reproduction because they don't believe women are capable of making the right choice; meanwhile, they wash their hands of anything they might do to help women struggling to raise a child.

Fact:  God did not choose to punish women for having abortions.  Women who have abortions can get pregnant another time.  My two adult children are proof enough that my choices were sound.  If I believed in God, I would say that He approved.

Fact:  God did not appoint lawmakers to monitor or punish women for their reproductive lives or choices.  Really.  Lindsey Graham is not more capable of deciding whether my daughter should have a baby than she is.

Fact:  Fetuses don't feel pain.  They don't masturbate.  They don't pray.  When we choose to have a baby, we also carry a lot of very romantic sweet notions about that developing fetus, that all has to do with its potential, not what it is.  There is nothing romantic or sweet about having a baby without affordable health care, or a baby born that will die minutes later, or having a baby that you are neither emotionally nor financially capable of caring for.

So, there are a lot of negatives in the above arguments.  But on the other side, we might just want to consider the positives.  We who choose abortion do it for selfish reasons.   Those reasons may include being able to finish college or take care of other children.  We may choose not to have a child we can't afford to support, or have the time to care for.  We may not want to have a child because we don't believe we would make good parents.  We may want to devote our lives to curing cancer or teaching.  We may choose an abortion just because it feels right.

In all those cases, we need to stand up and be proud of our choice.  Come out of the closet.  God doesn't condemn you, and who cares if Donald Trump does?  And we need to protect our words, and work hard to communicate our rights and beliefs.  Don't let people who are anti-abortion get away with saying they are pro-life; I guarantee, they are not.  Don't let them get away with using terms like "pain-capable" or "partial birth" or "dismemberment abortion," which latter is the most recent step on the slippery slope.  Fetuses aren't babies.  Women don't carry babies, except on their hips for a couple of years.

I am so proud of the women who are fighting this fight.  Many of them could be going about their lives assuming it isn't going to happen to them.  Abortion isn't something you grow up looking forward to, and pretty much by definition you don't plan for it.  So fighting for that right has to be more than the right to have an abortion.  It is about the right to determine our own paths, privately, freely, without government interference.  And it is about fighting for that right for all women.

H 3114

I always write my best words in the early morning hours.  Unfortunately, I write them in my head as I lay in bed wishing I could catch another hour's sleep.  This morning, I was writing words of anger at the fact -- the fact -- of the obscene twenty-week abortion ban, the obscenely named "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" becoming law.

In a state that continues to rank above average in infant mortality, in which our governor has proudly fought federal health care for the poor, our legislature continues to waste our time and precious dollars on bills that would force women to turn their reproductive health over to the government.

In a state where gun violence rules families and neighborhoods, bills promoting the unabashed toting of weapons are as plentiful as, well, as anti-abortion bills.

But over the past years there has been a growing movement, voices that will be heard over the misogynists that have run amok over our state governments.

The headlines began in 2012 with two women representatives being banned from the Michigan House floor after Lisa Brown said the word "vagina" while speaking. 

In 2013 a woman in the Texas legislature, Wendy Davis, in pink sneakers, filibustered an anti-abortion bill that would close abortion clinics throughout the state.

Over these past years, women have come forward to talk about their abortions, no longer hiding from public opinion, realizing that unless we can put faces to the right to have an abortion, that right will be lost.

And each indignity, each lie, has added fuel to our fire.  From Hobby Lobby claiming religious freedom as the principle from which they could deny an employee contraceptive care, to the false identities used to film and edit a meeting with representatives of Planned Parenthood, women are realizing they have had enough and they are fighting back.  The younger generation, those who do not have memories from before Roe v. Wade, are aware that this important freedom is being jeopardized.  And they are pissed off.

Not too long ago, I worried that young woman, because they had always had this right, would not see that it was at risk.  I was wrong.  You can see it all over the media these days.

There is Amy Schumer's "ask your doctor" video and Samantha Bee's segment on Texas' attacks on abortion clinics ("How does removing access to health care improve health care?").  And John Oliver recently turned his pen to a scathing indictment of Texas HB 2, that bill that Wendy Davis filibustered against in 2013 and which is now being challenged in the Supreme Court.  

I have often whined about the failure of movies to show abortion as a normal medical option, but that is happening too.  Grandma, with Lily Tomlin, is a breath of fresh air and a paean to the strength of women who have had to endure the pressure and the venom of the anti-abortionist while making such an important and personal decision.

Yes, I think we have all had it.  Right now it is the Supreme Court hearing regarding that awful Texas bill that has closed most clinics in the state for reasons having nothing to do with women's safety and everything to do with limiting access.  But it is also the fact that more women (and girls), denied access to safe abortions, are seeking information on how to self-abort.  It has come down to life and death, to the days of coat hangars and back alleys, once again.

And because of this, woman are willing to fight, for themselves, for their daughters and their mothers.  Men are standing up and fighting for the women that they love and respect, who should have the right to the best health care and to make the best choices without government interference.

So while my sleep-riddled words this morning were variations on the angry and mocking words I have written before, as I became fully awake it occurred to me that H 3114 is one more step towards taking our bodies and our rights back.  We have fought hard and learned that there is no way that reason can influence those mean-spirited and intellectually limited narcissists in our state legislatures.  But armies of women can make enough noise, as we have before, and change those legislatures.

I am looking forward to women, young and old, standing up to run against the tyrants, with loud and fearless voices.  They may not have the corporate money of the right-wing, but they have the power of the cause.  I have said before that when we take back our government and our rights, it will not be with candidates who are cautious and try not to ruffle the electorate.  We are the electorate, and there really are more of us that want our rights protected.  If we aren't afraid to fight, we will eventually win.

So just as the Texas bill was weaseled into law, so goes H 3114.  But that is not the end of the fight.  It is a battle that has energized those of us who truly value life and freedom, and we will not let it go so easily.

Democratic Women

With terrorist groups using Donald Trump's hate speeches to encourage terrorism, I would like to suggest a little diversion from the terrifying idea that he or any one of those idiots could be our next president.  It is truly too soon after the Dubya years to contemplate.

Instead, let's take a peek at our own SC State Legislature, and the schemes and pranks they have up their sleeves for the coming legislative session.

We do have heroes stepping up to file a bunch of gun control bills (oops, I mean "gun safety"), and a particularly brilliant and much-needed erectile dysfunction bill, the usual nuts and bolts are spewing the usual old-white-christian-male nonsense.  I wish December saw them spending more time celebrating the joy of Christmas and less time ruminating on how to take away the rights of all us residents of Whoville.

We have a bill that will protect pastors from the ever present threat that they will be forced to perform a marriage ceremony on a gay couple.  There's the one that keeps popping up that would make absolutely sure that our judges will not practice Sharia Law in our South Carolina Courts.  And one that will protect us from being overrun by refugees; once they have food and a roof over their heads, I imagine the fear is that the next step will be to establish their own little governments.

Then we have one that would require every school district to display the words "In God We Trust" in every single school in the state.  Since they'll be spending the tax dollars on plaques instead of educational materials, maybe our pols figure a miracle is the only way our kids are going to get educated.

Of course, the real red meat for our right wingnuts is women's reproductive rights.  How can Lee Bright focus on decorating that tree with little mangers when he is imagining all the infinitesimal little tiny babies in all the women and girls that might not be born?  And his buddy in all things despicable, Kevin Bryant, can't hardly say his prayers for imagining what goes on in a woman's body when she has an abortion.  Let's not forget Wendy Nanney who represents all the women who want to control women, and her fact-free "pain capable" anti-abortion bill which is likely to start the session right where it left off in June, attempting to force its way into passage.

As half-time of the two-year legislative sport approached, Kevin Bryant tossed out a bill that would ban "dismemberment abortions."  And chomping at the bit, during the prefile period, a whole plethora of lunatics signed on to the comedically entitled "Defunding the Abortion Industry and Advancing Women's Health Act."  Thanks to the Americans United for Life this bill is spreading around the states like ebola.  So as well as pretending the goal of killing Planned Parenthood is to save "babies," the anti-abortion movement has now taken the absolute galling stand of claiming they are protecting women's health.

Well, here's my point.

We need to fight these idiots.  They are very small, bitter people who are incapable of seeing the irony or the falsehood of any of this legislation.  The same legislators who would like to force women to bring a pregnancy to term work just as hard to make sure that she does not have adequate health care.  In the case of working to kill Planned Parenthood, they also want to make sure that women of limited means don't have access to birth control.  Many of them will fight to prevent medically accurate sex ed.

Gee, it's almost as though the radical right wing wants to punish girls and women for having sex by making them bear children.  And then make them work a low paying job with inadequate child care.  And then blame them -- and the kids -- when they have problems.

Family values just don't get screwier than that.

Here in Charleston County, we have a group of Democratic women that are fighting for sanity in our legislature.  They support representatives that will work for us, that will fight to protect us from the rabid and rage-filled radicals of the right.  And this year they have a goal of joining forces with us to advocate for us in Columbia.

Charleston County Democratic Women (CCDW) meets once a month, on the first Thursday, at the Charleston - Riverview Holiday Inn.  You don't have to be a member to enjoy the $20 buffet dinner and the speakers, and you don't have to be a woman.  You do have to support the goals that will make lives better for women, which in fact, will improve all our lives.

Membership is $20 annually, and January is membership renewing time.  While the cost of the meeting pays only for the dinner, membership goes toward supporting the candidates that will move us forward in South Carolina.  Better education for our children, freedom from reproductive tyranny for women and families.

On Thursday, January 7, the speaker will be Dr. Donna Johnson, first female Chair of the MUSC Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.  She will talk about why South Carolina gets an "F" in women's care.  And what we can do about it.

Start the year off right by supporting Charleston County Democratic Women, and by joining in the effort to make legislative changes that will in fact advance women's health, and improve the lives of all of us.

You can find Charleston County Democratic Women on Facebook, and get more information about Thursday's meeting.

I hope to see you there.

"Pain-Capable" Is Back and as Devious as Ever

Anti-abortion legislation is the bread-and-butter of the right wing.  Followers are rabid and loud.  My guess is it is a much smaller group than they seem, but they seem bigger because they just. won't. stop.  They show up at Planned Parenthood clinics, ACLU meetings, statehouses and Congress.

One might think that the right-wing, so concerned about governmental invasion of privacy in the Affordable Care Act, would be opposed to anti-abortion legislation that would control medical care and enforce it through invasion of privacy in those same medical records they have claimed to be protecting.  Or right-wingers that go ballistic (yeah, it's a pun but it's not that funny, is it?) over the suggestion of background checks much less registration of gun owners for fear they would invade the privacy of those who seek to wield deadly weapons would look askance at these bills.  Or how about those freedom-of-the-marketplace right-wingers who are now fighting to prevent private pharmaceutical and health insurance companies from offering birth control and abortion services?

These right-wingnuts are the same people who block attempts to feed the poor, including the pregnant and children, much less provide health care or adequate housing.  Life seems a little less precious to them when it comes to protecting it after birth.

Here in South Carolina, on Tuesday, an infant died.  Less than a month old, with a 17-year-old mother, who has been charged with murder and child felony abuse.  What social services might have prevented this tragedy?  And, what's worse, who among our lawmakers even cares?

So once again Congress and our own state legislators are force-feeding us the 20-week abortion ban, which, despite proven science, is misnamed the "pain-capable unborn child prevention act."  This is a win-win for these cruel and creepy lawmakers.  Whether the bill passes or not, they are allowed to act morally superior, get lots of publicity, and garner the support of the most vocal, persistent and vicious of us.

Neither new Senate leader Mitch McConnell nor our own Senator Tim Scott care about the suffering of the poor, the hungry children, the emotionally disturbed who are forced to bear children without a support system.  And here in South Carolina, during the holiday season, our own Wendy Nanney couldn't wait to introduce the 20-week abortion ban.  The national organizations are all over this, helping write the laws that allow others to invade the privacy and personal lives of women; they are there to corrode liberty in each state and nationally.

The thing is, we should also be all over this.  Not just because it seeks to impose government control over what should be women's private health care and reproductive decisions, although that is more than enough.  This bill speaks lies and deception from its very name.  First of all, "pain-capable" -- what the hell IS that?  Apparently, it means that a fetus is "capable" of feeling pain, if only...?  How about a fetus is capable of feeling pain if the mother does not get the proper nutrition?  Or a fetus is capable of feeling pain if a pregnant woman is not properly housed, or has to work in unsafe conditions, or has to breathe polluted air?

Actually, no, a fetus still is not capable of feeling pain under those conditions.  However, a pregnant woman is capable of feeling pain in those circumstances.  And if a pregnant woman brings her pregnancy to term, an actual baby is likely to feel pain with inadequate nutrition, health care, environment.  It seems that all those right wingnuts stop caring whether there is pain once a living being is actually capable of feeling it.

And actually, abortions at twenty weeks are very rare, and most often done in wanted pregnancies, when serious health problems arise.  To hear the wingnuts talk, you would think droves of women sit around pregnant for five months and then impulsively decide they'd rather not have that baby.  We need to yell bullshit to the false, deceptive presumptions that give these bills air each legislative season.

I for one get tired of fighting for the rights that women were guaranteed when we had a Supreme Court that considered individuals and not their own personal biases.  I hate to think about it, because there may well come a day when our daughters will be denied those rights, in fact, have been gradually losing them over the past decades.  But, you see, those on the other side love nothing better than that good old self-righteous fight.  If they lose, they lose nothing, and it feels good to bash others.  And if they win, they will be smug and smarmy about it for awhile, and then redraw that line so we have to fight them or lose another freedom.

So we need to be louder, and more persistent, and angrier than all those who are once again standing up to defend their right to take away a woman's freedom and privacy.

The Last Gasp of the Columbian Mammoth

I don't want to suggest that making the Columbian Mammoth the state fossil wasn't a hard fought victory; after all, it came to having to decide once and for all whether the earth is 6,000 years old.  But we managed a compromise between religion and science and we can rest easy about our State Fossil.  Which thankfully continues to make science in this great state a matter of opinion.

But still on the horizon are some horrendous and stinky bills, that are being pushed through in the last weeks of the session.  This week coming up are anti-abortion bills that masquerade as anything from protecting women from assault to protecting 20-week-old fetuses from feeling pain that they are physiologically incapable of feeling.  And just added to the roster is a bill that would add regulations to birth centers that would restrict the practice of midwives.  And another bill proposes to protect the rights of public schools to display religious symbols that represent holidays, once again keeping Christmas safe.

So here is a brief rundown:

In the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, Thursday 4/10, 9:30, 407 Gressette:

S 83 is the personhood bill, stating that life begins at fertilization. 

S 457 is pretty much the same nonsense, as far as I can tell. 

S 527 pretends that it wants to protect pregnant women from violence by allowing them use deadly force against an assailant.  THE TRICK IS THAT THE FETUS IS DEFINED AS AN UNBORN CHILD, WHICH SETS THE PRECEDENT FOR PERSONHOOD IF PASSED.  Nice try, sleazoids.

 Subcommittee members are:   Campsen (ch), Hutto, Gregory, Allen, Hembree.

* * * * *

Also in the Senate, the Medical Affairs Subcommittee Wednesday, 4/9, at 9 a.m., will hear debate on H 4223.  This is the 20-week abortion ban, falsely called the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act."  THIS BILL HAS PASSED THE HOUSE.  It is crucial that we be heard in the Senate on this bill.  Members of the subcommittee are:  Ray Cleary (ch), Hutto, Bright, Tom Davis, Kevin Johnson.

* * * * *

H 4458 will be heard by the House Committee on Education and Public Works.  This bill, which goes by the inoffensive title of "Winter Holidays" opens the door to religious symbolism in public schools, pretending that all religions would get equal representation, and that this is for the purpose of education rather than indoctrination.  This meeting will be held on Wednesday, 4/9.

* * * * *

H 5002 is a late-to-the-party attempt to restrict midwives through "accreditation" and "addressing professional requirements for staff members (at birth centers) who provide patient care."  You can't convince me that this doesn't also have an anti-abortion/contraception hidden agenda, although I can't prove it.

* * * * *

At the risk of sounding like Pollyanna, I am going to end with some potentially good news.

H 3435, the Comprehensive Health Education Act, has had its first reading on the House floor and could be called up for a vote as early as Tuesday.  This bill proposes upgrading school standards for health education to "medically accurate."  This is a good thing, and it seems to have a bit of momentum.  Which means you should call your legislators in the House and give them that little extra encouragement to vote yes, and bring our health education system out of the Stone Age, which is even older than the age of our State Fossil.

Finally, I would like to apologize for any errors.  I find this whole process terrible confusing, and wonder if that is part of the grand plan.