What you should have read this week

I'm reviving my weekly-ish round-up of things worth reading!

 

Black Women and The 41st Anniversary of Roe v. Wade: Thoughts About Reproductive Justice - Gradient Lair

"While some women are fighting not to conceive children—which matters—others are fighting to able to, to not be sterilized, to not be shamed and abused during pregnancy, to not live in poverty with that child and to not worry about State interference and oppression no matter what the choice may be. Whether Black women need abortion or need support for entering motherhood, both choices are valid and both need deliverance from the impact of White supremacist capitalist patriarchy on Black womanhood and Black motherhood."

I didn't fully understand what it means to be pro-choice ... until I decided not to have an abortion - Sarah Ditum

"I thought about the decision that was mine to make. And surprisingly, solidly, I realised what I would do: I would have this baby. At the time, I didn't know that there is a critical difference between unplanned and unwanted. At the time, I would barely have described myself as “wanting” children. I had never felt that cooing hunger which teenage girls called "broodiness", the longing to put their arms around a baby – even when small, I preferred reading to playing with dolls. And I will never feel the ravenous grief that older women call broodiness, either, the anguish of love with no object. But I did want a child, and specifically I wanted a child with the man I was with. It was ten years premature, but this was that child."

Not caring isn’t caring more: Lord Rennard, Michael White and feminist priorities - Glosswatch

"In the meantime, though, we feminists are stuck with this endless list of reminders from those far cleverer than us. Just in case you’ve forgotten, you shouldn’t worry about banknotes because you should be worrying about Page Three. You shouldn’t worry about Page Three because you should be worrying about every other page of the Sun. You shouldn’t be worrying about the Sun because you should be worrying about the representation of women across the whole of the media. You shouldn’t be worrying about women in the media because you should be worrying about violence against women. You shouldn’t be worrying about violence against women because you should be worrying about FGM."

The glitter and gloss of the faith of my youth - Nish Weiseth

"After I got married and we left Boulder, a deep-seeded cynicism set in, and every little thing about that former church were all things I despised about Christianity. I mean, really, WHO NEEDS A FOG MACHINE AND LASER LIGHTS? But now, working through that cynicism and suspicion, I've come to have a tender place for churches like that. The glossy evangelical megachurch is a part of my story, just as much as the more gritty, hipster, urban church we're in now.

But, more than missing the worship service and the big-church feel, I miss having an answer for everything and having a checklist to live by. I miss the Christianity of my younger years. I miss that chapter of my story, and in some ways, I truly long for it. Being naive was so much easier."

She's All That : 15 years and 5,000 words - Bim Adewunmi

"I first watched She’s All That back in 1999, at the Stratford Picturehouse some weekend after school. I remember loving it, because it hit all the spots it was supposed to: boy and girl got to have each other at the end, and bad guy kind of got his comeuppance, which is as it should be in real life. The 90s – especially in the mid-to-late period – was a significant time for teen movies. It was a golden period, during which the industry enjoyed a purple patch starting around 1995 with Clueless, continuing into 1996 with The Craft, and exploding in a high point of acne, prom and hormone-fug in 1999, which saw the release of 10 Things I Hate About You, Cruel Intentions, Never Been Kissed, Election, American Pie and of course, She’s All That."

Inside Nigeria's ruthless human trafficking mafia - Tobore Ovuorie

"It is on the windy Sunday evening of October 6 that I make my first contact with the outer ring of this mafia. A big party with VIPs is on the cards; the kind of party an ordinary girl, or rather ‘product’, as we are called by traffickers, is not usually invited to. But I am currently on a fortune ride: Oghogho’s favourite. Additionally, I have been classified as ‘Special Forces’, or ‘Forza Speciale’ as my new contacts say, borrowing the Italian term.  It’s a rule of thumb, I understand, that a syndicate subjects girls to classification through a check on their nude bodies and I, too – in the company of some male and female judges, headed by a trafficker called Auntie Precious – had been checked. I had received the highest classification. “This means that you don’t have to walk the streets. You can be an escort for important clients,” Auntie Precious had told me in a soft, congratulatory tone. The ones of ‘lesser’ classification were referred to as Forza Strada, the Road Force."

And finally...

- This week I finished Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah. Get on it, if you haven't already.

- C. Jane Kendrick is back on the blogging wagon. Hurrah!

- Sunday 26 January is World Leprosy Day (work-related plug alert). If you don't know much about leprosy now's your chance to find out how it's very much a 21st century disease. Watch the video!

- At the Christian Feminist Network we're organising a day conference that's being held on Saturday 1 March in Manchester. The conference will include presentations, workshops and discussion as well as the chance to network with other Christian feminists. Find out more and sign up.

#notblinkered: rebranding pro-life

The past few weeks have seen a resurgence in discussions about whether or not we need to rebrand feminism - this time, thanks to Elle magazine and some competition in the USA. No-one loves a rebranding discussion. I imagine memoirs of the feminist movement in decades to come:

It is generally accepted that the downfall of patriarchy began with one key turning point in 2013: a corporate advertising campaign. The men saw that gender equality was unthreatening and compatible with body hair removal. And so began the end of misogyny.

Feminism, however, isn't the only movement that's currently toying with a rebrand. The pro-life organisation Life has launched a social media campaign, #notblinkered.

“Do you have a stereotype of someone who's 'prolife'? White? Middle aged? Middle class? Right wing? Religious? Anti-women's rights? Blinkered?”

Life have correctly identified that this is exactly the stereotype that people have of those who are anti-abortion. It's one that isn't exactly challenged by the sort of people who picket clinics and the sort of politicians who support them. The campaign's aim is to “challenge the stereotypes associated with prolifers” and prove that they're 'not blinkered' about the issues surrounding abortion, while acknowledging “the damage abortion has done to women, children, families and society as a whole”. So far, it features interviews with a feminist, an atheist and a socialist.

Despite writing about abortion rights on numerous occasions in the past and strongly identifying as pro-choice, I've grown weary of the way the debates on the subject nearly always pan out. I believe that both 'sides' can be incredibly blinkered and that the abortion debate consistently lacks nuance and consideration of surrounding issues. I don't find it helpful that anyone claiming the label 'pro-life' is liable to be branded a 'woman hater' by pro-choice activists. I don't find it helpful that pro-life activists harass women outside clinics and feel it's acceptable to give out misleading information about pregnancy and abortion. And I feel the label 'pro-life' has ceased to be helpful at all because people use it to mean so many different things.

Very often, at the merest mention of someone being 'pro-life', people will jump to the conclusion that they believe abortion should be illegal, or at least that they believe in various pieces of restrictive legislation that will slowly make abortion illegal except in exceptional circumstances. I know this is not always the case.

What's interesting is that none of the 'stories' featured on the #notblinkered blog discuss legislation. What these pro-lifers believe about whether or not abortion should be legal, what their opinions are about an upper time limit, what they believe about medical abortions or social abortions or extreme circumstances isn't apparent. And I get that this isn't the point of the campaign. The point of the campaign is to get us to consider the whole picture, the grey areas. What of the women who feel pressured into having an abortion by their partner or family? What is 'choice' when you're so constrained by your financial situation that you can't continue with a pregnancy?

But many pro-choice advocates have been left unimpressed by #notblinkered. They see this 'challenging of stereotypes' as a gimmick to try to make us believe pro-lifers are harmless. That their beliefs don't see thousands of women die each year from unsafe abortions and endanger many lives. And this is why the pro-life movement might lead a few more people to look favourably upon them by launching #notblinkered, but why it could also do much, much more by suggesting - and becoming known for working on - ethical and effective solutions that are pro-minimisation of abortion:

1. Challenging the government on measures that have plunged more people into poverty and desperate situations – especially women.

2. Supporting comprehensive sex education that makes sure young people are well-educated about the mechanics of sex and conception but also about healthy and unhealthy relationships, and avoiding risky sexual behaviour. It's well known that the anti-abortion organisation SPUC are extremely opposed to sex education and view it as "damaging". Life doesn't hold an enormously positive view of current sex and relationships education (who does?), but I do feel there needs to be more of a consensus on what good SRE actually looks like. I'm not so sure that both camps could ever achieve this, but why not explore it?

3. Providing ethical, unbiased, and accurate counselling (we know Life have been challenged about this following a 2011 investigation – I truly hope that they have reviewed their training, materials and procedures since). There is no excuse for promoting untruths about pregnancy and abortion, whatever your stance on the issue.

4. Providing support to women in crisis situations who may need financial help or somewhere to live. I am aware that Life already does this. Pro-choice campaigners see this as being of key importance too - there is common ground. The real crisis here is the state of women's services due to cuts.

5. Challenging the negative and derogatory stereotypes that persist whenever conversations about abortion in Britain today take place - 'using abortion as contraception'; 'social abortions' (as if these are carried out for exclusively 'trivial' and 'frivolous' reasons); 'abortion as a lifestyle choice'. A common accusation thrown at the pro-life movement is that it cares more about policing women's sexual activity than it does about the lives of babies and children. It has to move away from judgemental attitudes.

6. If there is really no compulsion to 'turn back the clock' on women's rights, finding common ground with the pro-choice movement and working together on pro-minimisation initiatives rather than seeking reactionary changes in legislation without having looked into other measures first, and without considering the whole picture.

I'm not making these suggestions simply because I think the pro-life movement needs to make itself more palatable to its detractors. I'm making them because I believe that if you truly value life you must address the factors that contribute towards women having abortions, and see what can be changed. Many of these issues are important to pro-choicers too, and it is in this overlap that we should be able to understand each other a bit more and see what might emerge.

Between my ears

I've been talking to friends this week about having writer's block. Posts on here have tailed off of late and there are several reasons why. I returned to work last month and things have been busy. Settling into being back in the office plus being a parent AND having a life is tiring and time consuming - who'd have thought it? It means I think about writing posts then realise I won't be able to do so in a timely fashion. It means I miss out on news. It means I think about it too much and get frustrated.

Not writing as much means my perfectionist side comes out when I actually think about blogging. Over the past couple of weeks I've agonised over exactly how I'm going to write about several things, only to give up because if they're not going to be good, I'm not going to bother. I like a lot of the posts that I've written immediately as thoughts have come to me - the words flow easily and as they've generally been posts in response to something that's either just happened or is still happening, they're easy to write.

When you don't have the time and the energy, posts don't come as easily any more. It's hard for me not to beat myself up about this. But I think there's also a weariness as well, that's come out of some of the things that have been happening over the past year.

I've thought about expanding more on my final column for BitchBuzz, about how you shouldn't fear the Evil Twitter Feminist and how you can get past the drama surrounding debate about certain issues. I've thought about it but it's really hard, because as someone else was saying to me today, there needs to be some sort of a third way.

At the moment we have one 'side' writing articles every few weeks about the nasty, elitist divisiveness of the feminists on Twitter who talk about intersectionality and privilege, and in response we have the other side justifiably getting irritated by blinkered and often offensive refusal to engage with the idea that they need to listen to diverse points of view. It's a vicious circle and every few days something else is stoking the fires again, yet there's little moving forward precisely because some people won't engage except to mock and snipe and it in turn makes some other people really angry.

I've thought about writing again about the need for more prominence of nuanced discussion in the abortion debate. It's there. You don't have to look hard to find women talking about why reproductive rights doesn't just mean the right to terminate a pregnancy because their experiences are of forced abortion and forced sterilisation and forced adoption thanks to their race or their class or their family situation. You don't have to look hard to find people talking about why 'pro-life' needs to be a more wide-ranging concept and asking where the compassion for women is in all of this. You don't have to look hard to find women wondering why some activists have a whole lot to say about not wanting to keep a child, but virtually nothing to say about the fact that four out of five women will at some point have children and that many, many feminists issues will affect them because of this.

I've thought about writing on my evolving feelings about church and the Christian community and the Christian blogosphere and the pressures and the trends and the loneliness of the past year and my thankfulness for online community, but that's really hard too. A fellow Christian blogger recently wrote about how difficult he was finding attending church; he followed this up with a post about how uncomfortably vulnerable it had made him feel. As "professional Christians" we struggle to truly articulate our feelings about church a lot of the time. We think about who's following us on Twitter; who might see the post shared on Facebook. What our friends might think and the problem that so many people seem to have with questioning. The way that someone, somewhere, is bound to say "If you have a problem with the church the problem probably lies with you!" The fact that a lot of people will judge you because you're not supposed to ask questions.

I will say this: I have felt deeply unenthusiastic. I have felt lonely. I have felt irritable, overtired, overwhelmed, antisocial, unsupported, invisible, disappointed, and sad for people I know who have felt the same. On the other hand I still know God is there - no doubt about it. I've felt affirmed, encouraged, loved, and grateful. So it's not all doom and gloom. But it's damn hard when you usually process things by writing about them and feel you can't. Who would have thought that I wouldn't want to rock the boat?

I've considered writing about a lot of things and haven't managed it - until tonight. And while this post is no substitute, really, I'm publishing it to remind myself that I've still got something going on between my ears.

Towards a more wide-ranging "pro-life"

"Being a pro-choice evangelical is a bit niche, isn't it?" I said to someone in the midst of the latest blowup over abortion rights. First it was Maria Miller and 20 weeks. Now Jeremy Hunt and his support for a 12 week upper limit, which has had all my fellow pitchfork-wielding leftie Twittermobbers raging for the past couple of days.

Hunt stated in an interview that his view on the 12 week limit is down to his personal belief "about the moment we should deem life to start", not, he added, "for religious reasons". David Cameron has responded by saying that the government "has no plans to bring forward any legislation in this area". Still, it's unsettling, isn't it? Both the minister for women and the health secretary. Whether Cameron's got plans to that effect or not, it's got people worried yet again, that little by little we're going to see that limit chipped away.

Being pro-choice means that people ask me things like why, as a Christian, I'm not "valuing life above all else". If babies born before 24 weeks have survived, why shouldn't the cut-off point be 20 weeks? Meanwhile, people talk about those who want a 20 week limit as "hating women". Both sides of the debate, at their extremes fuelled by comments like Hunt's, are completely unhelpful.

My issue is this: on the side of the debate that values life above all else, there is plenty of commitment to slashing the legal limit for women to have abortions (based on the survival of a handful of babies), but precious little noise made about addressing many of the issues surrounding why women are having abortions in the first place. Take, for example, these case studies from BPAS showing the reasons for requests for abortion over 22 weeks gestation in 2008. Poverty, abuse, homelessness, addiction, mental health issues, stalling on the part of the NHS meaning women had had to wait weeks to access services. And several women who had no reason to believe they were pregnant in the first place.

It's my belief that a commitment to lowering the number of abortions should go hand in hand with a commitment to lowering the number of unwanted pregnancies and supporting women at all stages of their lives. Unfortunately you don't often hear those who are anti-abortion talking about better sex and relationships education for young people, easier access to contraception, addressing issues such as domestic violence, poverty, rape, and support for women who are unsure about what choice to make that doesn't just involve telling them how much they'll regret having an abortion. More talk like that might mean more people would believe Maria Miller when she calls herself a "very modern feminist". We haven't quite reached the same state of affairs as the USA yet, but who knows what could happen - as Tanya Gold said in a piece for The Guardian on Friday:

"The abortion wars in America, funded by Republicans who want miracle babies but not a functioning welfare state..."

There are two further issues with 20 weeks - one being the anomaly scan carried out around this point in a pregnancy, and the other being the fact that some women end up waiting weeks to access the services they need when considering whether or not to have an abortion. It goes without saying that even when the procedure is restricted or made illegal, women will still find ways to do it. We don't demonstrate holding banners with pictures of coathangers for nothing.

To my mind, when I'm supporting a pro-choice point of view, I am "valuing life". Access to abortion should be combined with action on all the issues mentioned above - the sex education and the domestic abuse and the waiting times. It's not enough to talk about abstinence education yet send more families into poverty and cut funding to women's shelters. As @DillyTante said in an excellent post yesterday:

"Lowering the legal limits for abortion will not reduce the number of abortions. It will reduce the number of legal and safe abortions. Someone desperate enough to terminate a baby in the middle of pregnancy is likely to go to any lengths to do so. Reducing the legal limit for abortion will not result in more happy smiley chubby babies; it will increase the number of desperately unhappy women and children brought into this world in devastating circumstances. With a government reducing welfare and community support for families and people with disabilities this can only be a path to unhappiness for many."

As a Christian I'd like to see more of a "pro-life" commitment to this side of the story. Maybe then I'd be convinced that there is a real concern for women and their welfare. The desire to "value life" when "life" refers to a foetus is all well and good, but what of the lives and wellbeing of women? What of the life of the child once it's actually exited the womb? I don't see any of that in the demonstrations outside clinics, or in the desire to lower the legal limit on dubious medical grounds. And that's why I occupy my "niche" position: because I hope for something different. People are entitled to an anti-abortion view, but all too often they let themselves down.

Image via howardlake's Flickr

Pregnancy, me, and the GOP

I haven't really felt compelled to blog about my pregnancy. I did wonder, when I wrote that post at the end of my first trimester, whether it would be something I'd start writing about a lot more. And next week, I enter my third trimester. The home strait. To tell you the truth, I've just been getting on with things. My second trimester bought with it a new job and a good deal more energy. Not, mind you, to the extent that I'd say I felt "full of energy", as some women say. I've had to make sure that I get enough rest. But I have been very well. The past three months have been full of projects, planning, and writing again. And of course, I've been spending a lot of time thinking about my impending motherhood situation.

Thinking about it - but not writing about it. Being pregnant has taught me a few things. Firstly, I now know that I truly have no interest in writing about anything that's going to make me an unwilling participant in the "Mommy/Mummy Wars" of sniping about differing parenting choices. Secondly, I know that I'm not going to get stressed, via my blog, over things that have the potential to change completely through no fault of my own and have no bearing on me as a person. My birth plan. My symptoms. Thirdly, it's taught me that I really am so grateful for the circumstances of this pregnancy and the choices I have been able to make about it.

Some time ago I had some commenters on a blog post insinuate to me that my opinions about reproductive rights, feminism and gender equality were somehow naïve and uninformed because I was young and had yet to have children of my own. As if having a child would make me see the error of my ways and suddenly start telling other women that having "only" two children is "selfish" and that I didn't know how they could call themselves Christians yet be pro-choice.

The child is still inside me, but as yet, this change hasn't happened. I was concerned about the issues surrounding motherhood and reproduction before I became pregnant, but creating this baby has only made me feel more strongly about the positions I've always held. Part of that's down to the frankly terrifying situation in the US that began unfolding in 2011, dubbed the year of "The War On Contraception" by Amanda Marcotte. As my pregnancy has progressed, the situation for women in the US has regressed.

Everyone was so excited when the news broke that women were finally going to be able to access birth control without copays through their health insurance. Unfortunately it was all of five minutes before conservatives started kicking up a fuss. Fast forward to this week and today I tweeted that I'm just going to start referring to the US as the "Republic of Gilead" because goodness knows there's a bunch of politicians and people of influence over there who seem to be all geared up to go down that route. On Thursday we sat  dumbfounded as a panel comprised entirely of men decided that the input of a woman in favour of contraception coverage wasn't relevant to their discussion on birth control and health insurance. Democratic women walked out of Rep. Darrell Issa's hearing in protest.

The woman the Republicans had refused to allow to speak had planned to talk about the experiences of women she knew who had been denied birth control coverage, including:

"...a woman who has lost an ovary because she was even denied coverage for pill not even needed for contraceptive, but for medical purposes. As a result of not having the proper medical care, the woman, now 32 years old, lost an ovary and is experiencing an early menopause, threatening her ability to have children."

The panel felt that this woman did not have the "credentials" to speak. A woman. Not having the "credentials" to speak with any authority to men about women's reproductive health. This is the reality of what happens when women are blocked from easily accessing contraception because of ridiculous notions about who should be using it and why - coming, incidentally, from the same people who no qualms about making medication for men who are affected by erectile dysfunction easily accessible as a necessity.

Because of course men aren't the problem here for the GOP. That's abundantly clear. No matter that their desire to see the number of abortions being carried out in the US decrease might actually become reality should they make contraception available to all. No, despite the fact that 99% of all sexually active women have used or are using birth control (and 98% of sexually active Catholic women are doing the same, for those making the fuss about Catholic employers being required to cover contraception), the powers that be would like to make it so that they can't. And just in case you weren't sure exactly why they hold this opinion, billionaire Santorum supporter Foster Friess was happy to give us all a good idea.

“Back in my day, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly,” he said on Thursday.

You'd better be keeping your legs closed, gals. Keeping your legs closed or popping out kids. That's what it comes down to.

And you know what? I haven't even mentioned the mess that is the proposed Virginia ultrasound law. You need to read about it, but what you need to know is this: forced transvaginal probing. David Englin, opposing the bill, has apparently recalled a conversation with a GOP lawmaker who:

"...told him that women had already made the decision to be vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant."

But wait - there's more! Yes, there's also the small matter of a bill passed by the Oklahoma State Senate on Wednesday, defining "personhood" as beginning at conception and therefore granting rights to fertilised eggs. Says the Ms. Magazine newswire:

"If the personhood initiative appears on the ballot, emergency contraception, birth control pills, IUDs, and abortions - even in cases of rape and incest or to save the life of the woman or girl - would be threatened. The initiative would even go so far as to eliminate medical choices for women, including some cancer treatments, in vitro fertilization, and could allow the state to investigate and even prosecute a woman for a miscarriage."

Put simply, it makes me want to tear my hair out. I don't expect anything approaching a measured position on reproductive rights from the GOP any more and I know that as a woman living in the UK, these decisions don't affect me, do why does it bother me so much? It just makes me so disappointed and angry that the lives of millions of women are being played with like this thanks to the ideological position of a sadly powerful minority, who would prevent women from accessing vital and possibly life-saving medical treatment, rob them of the right to use contraception and when challenged, tell them they just need to keep their legs closed.

Being pregnant has made me so grateful for the way I've been able to exercise choice in the matter, grateful that Luke and I have been able to make decisions about having a child together, aided by easy access to contraception, free healthcare, and the knowledge that the law is not working against me to discount my own life should anything go wrong. If I'd had a miscarriage, I would not have had to worry about the potential of being arrested. If I'd had to have a termination out of medical necessity, I know there would not have been people waiting outside the hospital to shout abuse at me and my husband.

And it makes me so angry for the millions of women who don't have those privileges, in "the land of the free". The "land of opportunity". Where a party that wants "small government" thinks all this is somehow an example of that, not to mention an example of the "separation of church and state". All thanks to the unbelievable crusades of a bunch of politicians who will never, ever become pregnant or know what it is like to have a womb, or ovaries.

Sex-selective abortion and playing into anti-choice hands

How can we encourage effective, productive debate on sex-selective abortion?

Most of us are aware of how this practice is contributing to declining ratios of girls to boys. We hear the most about the problems it's causing in India and China, but recently have learnt more about the fact the "trend" is now affecting countries such as "Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, the Balkans and Albania, where the sex ratio is 115/100".

Clearly, the issue of societies that value boy children over girl children (and the associated issues this ends up contributing to, such as sex trafficking and prostitution) to this extent should be a major area of concern for gender equality activists, but what poses a problem here is the extent to which any discussion is obviously going to provide fuel for anti-choice fires.

I haven't read Mara Hvistendahl's book Unnatural Selection, but her analysis of the situation got plenty of attention this summer.

"Historically, societies in which men substantially outnumber women are not nice places to live. Often they are unstable. Sometimes they are violent," she says.

But instead of purely focusing on the cultural aspects of what makes sex-selective abortion acceptable, she makes a case for the West playing a major part - exporting as it has modern technology, safer abortions and ultrasound scans. What's clear is that there is a lot to be considered.

The way in which discussion on all of this is likely to become unproductive was demonstrated perfectly by Laurie Penny's column in the New Statesman yesterday. Laurie was characteristically emotive, writing of "missing girls" and the "howls" of the "ghosts of girl children", while giving ideas as to how the "trend" can be reversed, citing South Korea as an example.

"Better education of girls, equal rights legislation and more participation by women in public life made prejudice against female children seem outdated, according to a recent report by the Economist," she wrote.

Below the line, several people commenting chose to attack Laurie for what they saw as her "hypocrisy", writing that she "can't have it both ways" and insinuating that her belief that abortion should be safe and legal is an enormous contradiction of her stance on sex-selective terminations. Obviously this is untrue, but I know it made a lot of people wonder how, as feminists, we can move forward in discussing the issue without falling into the trap of using phrases that wouldn't be out of place in anti-choice literature and playing into the hands of those who are quick to call "hypocrisy!".

I think what this demonstrates is the need to be careful with our choice of words, not relying on imagery - such as "ghosts" and "howls" that can easily be turned into an attack from the "other side" and look pretty suspect when we know that we would be quick to criticise the same language if it came from elsewhere. Said @sofiebuckland on Twitter yesterday:

"The last thing we want to do is hand tools to the rightwing or anti-choice to beat us with our own perceived hypocrisies. Which this does."

So where do we go from here? After talking about this on Twitter yesterday, some of us felt that an open discussing stemming from a post outlining the problem might be a good idea because several people had a lot to say. So: feel free to discuss and make suggestions!

Interesting link via Education for Choice on US implementation of anti-sex-selection policies with an anti-choice undertone for those who are interested - Arizona's faulty logic on sex-selective abortion.

Photo via achiemcphee's Flickr.

Dear Nadine Dorries...

Hey Nadine,

Like many other women have done, I thought I'd write to you about my uterus this week. If I’m honest I know it’s not going to be riveting. In fact, this might be the tale of just about the most boring uterus ever as far as you’re concerned. After a few painful and unpredictable years working itself out in my teens it does the same thing once a month on a nice regular cycle with no fuss save the usual symptoms. It’s also one of your favourite types of uterus, that is to say one that’s happily ensconced inside the body of a nice, married, Christian woman who “just said no” when she was a teenager and has never “got herself pregnant”. It accompanies me to church every week and together we sit and learn more about Jesus and how we can be more like Him.

This brings me round to an interesting point, Nadine. I believe that part of being a Christian is acting with integrity and genuinely trying to help those in need. As a result, I really worry about the level of care provided by the groups you endorse and hope to see offering counselling to women. I have no problem with optional, impartial, agenda-free counselling which helps women to figure out what’s best for them and feel that ALL organizations offering services probably need to assess where they could do better. But I don’t believe that this is what you want. It worries me that research has shown some of the “help” on offer at counselling centres to be fact-free, manipulative and misleading. And that’s just not Christ-like.

I have never been pregnant. In the future, I would very much like to be, meaning that any pregnancies would in theory be planned for and very wanted, given security by my happy marriage, supportive family and (currently) just-about-enough income. But there are other factors I can’t know about yet – my health, for example – or the health of the foetus. And despite my privilege as a potential incubator of new life, I know that countless women are not in the same situation, and that they have different things to consider. I don’t know what’s best for them – and neither do you. Or the people at LIFE, for that matter.

My uterus may have had an uneventful life so far, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing to say on this issue.

Your sister in Christ (Yes! I went there!),

Hannah  

This post is part of the Dear Nadine Dorries project.

Problems with faith-based crisis pregnancy centres exposed

Yesterday the Guardian published the results of a survey of ten faith-based and anti-choice crisis pregnancy centres (CPCs), which has been carried out by Education for Choice in the wake of the government's decision to consider offering counselling roles outside of the NHS to organisations such as Life and Care Confidential. Such a move would be at the expense of impartial services such as those run by Marie Stopes and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS).

What Education for Choice discovered in the course of its research is, quite frankly, horrendous. The inclusion of Life on the government's new Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV has been hailed as a victory by the anti-choice camp, and has also been welcomed by those who feel that all viewpoints should be given a say on the matter. The problem here is that instead of providing "impartial" advice and truly wishing to help women, it's clear that this is far from what's happening at many CPCs.

"A survey of 10 centres operated by Christian and anti-abortion organisations found evidence in most of them of poor practice and factually incorrect advice, while the quality of counselling differs widely. Advice ranged from scaremongering – linking abortion with breast cancer, for example – to actions apparently designed to steer women away from abortion, such as showing them baby clothes..."

For a start, the fact that organisations like Life are strictly anti-choice should not ever mean that they are free to offer misinformation and manipulative actions as a response to women who may be vulnerable, making a difficult choice, unsure about the facts or looking for support. Faith-based groups have got history with this - think of the way many of the groups involved with abstinence education in the USA built education programs for teens around informing them that any sexual activity would give them cancer, make them infertile and leave them unable to find a partner to marry. There needs to be a commitment to offering correct information which values facts over religious agenda and there is simply no excuse for some of this "information" being given out to people:

"At a Life centre in Covent Garden, London, the undercover researcher was given a leaflet entitled Abortions – How they're Done, which said incorrectly that 85% of abortions are carried out using vacuum aspiration. It stated that 'the unborn child is sucked down the tube' and that 'the woman should wear some protection. She has to dispose of the corpse.'"

What was also clear from Education for Choice's investigations is that many CPC counsellors appear to be lacking the training and information needed to appropriately respond to clients (although staff at two centres were reported to have given good and helpful advice):

"When asked whom to talk to about arranging an abortion, the counsellor stated that the organisation was pro-life and could not recommend any service. She claimed not to know the names of abortion providers."

A counsellor at one centre under the direction of Life "repeatedly suggested the client should wait two to three weeks before making her decision on abortion". I don't need to spell out the impact this could have in terms of taking women further into a pregnancy and closer to the upper limits of legality.

One counsellor at a centre overseen by Care Confidential - which, according to its website, offers "unbiased counselling" - "did not know the legal time limit for abortion, claimed that there were no statistics on the number of women who have terminations and had little idea about local services". The undercover researcher was also given an "abortion recovery" manual which stated:

"If we are to walk this journey with a woman then we need to clearly see which boundaries she has crossed … immorality, coveting, lying, as well as taking innocent life."

I have no doubt that some women do feel upset and ashamed after having made the choice to have an abortion and that in these circumstances they should have full support available to them - and yes, faith-based support if they feel comfortable with this. But each case is different and it simply isn't right to treat all women as sufferers of this fictional "post-abortion syndrome". I believe that even those who believe abortion is always the wrong decision to make need to be educating women responsibly. It's appropriate for them to outline their agenda as an organisation but never to use this as a front for lying and refusing to help people. It's not, in my opinion, appropriate to distribute materials defined by faith-based jargon and principles to those who might have no experience of that particular religion and no affiliation with it, while offering no additional information.

It is especially inappropriate when you consider the endorsement of such organisations by politicians such as Nadine Dorries as "balanced, impartial, accountable and caring", while BPAS et al are denounced as having a "vested interest".

As a Christian it concerns me that these reports are increasingly aligning faith-based services in the UK with manipulation and misinformation. There needs to be a responsibility to speak the truth and not hide behind the label of "impartiality" while providing counselling which is anything but. I have no desire to attack groups for holding pro-life views, but research like this makes it hard for me to accept much of what they're doing. I'm sure it's possible to espouse a "pro-life" message without resorting to distorting medical facts and statistics. CPCs need to be clear about where they stand, but also that they are willing to help women and tell the truth. Promoting guilt and shame isn't the answer and it has potentially damaging consequences for women who are dealing with additional issues such as mental health problems, pregnancy resulting from rape, or domestic violence.

A spokesperson for Care Confidential has apologised for the services researched by Education for Choice and says that a "full review of quality control, training and support" will be carried out, including rewriting training manuals to reflect diversity of faith in society. I hope that with rising public awareness of what CPCs do, they will commit to training counsellors to give advice tailored to their clients' needs and make a move away from such obvious misinformation.

Read the executive summary of Education for Choice's report here.

Photo via benuski's Flickr.

Things worth paying attention to this week

Rachel Held Evans - The trouble with litmus tests

"I apply litmus tests to my fellow Christians because, for about five seconds, they make me feel better about my own decisions and beliefs. After those five seconds have passed, however, it becomes painfully obvious that my efforts at “fruit inspection” or “doctrinal correctness” are being seriously hampered by the massive log stuck in my eye."

From me on BitchBuzz - Help celebrate Emmeline Pankhurst's birthday

"This year, Manchester-based artist Charlotte Newson will be celebrating the birthday of the political activist, founder of the Women's Social and Political Union and feminist heroine with a special collaborative project."

National Geographic - Child Brides

"Child marriage spans continents, language, religion, caste. In India the girls will typically be attached to boys four or five years older; in Yemen, Afghanistan, and other countries with high early marriage rates, the husbands may be young men or middle-aged widowers or abductors who rape first and claim their victims as wives afterward, as is the practice in certain regions of Ethiopia."

Ekklesia - Britain's young people - sexualised, radicalised or patronised?

"Instead, consumerism promotes a narrow idea of what sexuality is all about. This is an image of sexuality that says a lot about money and little about love. Assumptions about what is acceptable have more to do with social convention than with compassion, consent or mutuality. The problem is not the sexualisation of childhood, but the commercialisation of sexuality."

Christian New Media Awards & Conference 2011 - Nominations are now open

Independent - How the right-wing press lost interest in Gabrielle Brown

"It’s a terrible thing to be cynical, but one could easily come away with the impression that these newspapers were only interested in Ms Browne’s opinions so long as they fitted with their own reactionary agenda on criminal justice."

Sarah Ditum for Comment is Free - To protect girls, women must have rights

"Sex-selection stories in the UK (when there isn't a urgent medical motive, like a hereditary sex-specific disease) tend to hinge on a parent's burning desire to have a child they can either kick a football at or cover in pink frills – reasoning that makes gender into a frivolous add-on in the quest to assemble a perfect family. But in the parts of the world that practise widespread sex-selective abortion, having a baby with the "wrong" genitals can be devastating."

Kathy Escobar - "Auntie Kathy, are you sure it’s not wrong for you to be a pastor?"

"You see, the 'we don’t really value your voice' message goes far beyond just whether or not women preach or teach. It’s the subtle ways women don’t have equal power, leadership, value, or voice, where entire generations of misogyny are built upon a few passages of scripture and the liberating message of Jesus gets lost."

Petition - Stop the deportation of Betty Tibakawa

"Betty Tibakawa has had her asylum application turned down and is facing deportation back to Uganda, where homosexuality is illegal. Gay women who are deported to Uganda risk being raped and assaulted whilst they are in custody. We are petitioning the Home Office to overrule this decision from the UK Border Agency, to give Betty the chance to live a life free from violence and fear. No one should be deported to country where they will be persecuted for their sexuality. We owe those seeking asylum in this country better than this."

One Off Productions - It began with name calling (scroll down for parts 1 through 5)

"I have a friend called Etta. She is a Holocaust survivor. It has taken her many years to be able to talk about her experiences. Now she does. She believes that she has to. To try and prevent Holocausts. She does it in memory of those she lost to the gas chambers and all those who she saw die. She does not want to let them down. Recently she learned of the EDL. She asked me if I would help her write this. This was her idea. It is the hardest thing that I have ever written. The bold is a simple version of horror that has happened. The rest are comments that have come from the Face Book pages of the EDL."

Gender Across Borders - "Boys will be boys" - and other language which rigidifies our conceptions of masculinity

"Unsurprisingly, women-centered idioms and expressions tend to be derogatory, as is the case with ‘run like a girl.’ This is, once again, an expression that is used to remind boys that in order to be real boys, they must at all costs avoid behavior that might be perceived as feminine."

More Than Toast - I am NOT a mumpreneur

"I don’t need to be congratulated or patronised. I thrive on juggling all my balls and I get so much more out of life and my daughter because of it. I understand my view is in the extreme and may touch a nerve with some, but to me the term ‘Mumpreneur’ is condescending, patronising and outdated."

Anti-choice smackdown

I loved reading the responses to my guest post at C Jane Enjoy It, which went up on Sunday. After the explosive reaction Courtney's previous posts about feminism have received, I wasn't sure whether I was going to be in for a barrage of abuse or much virtual back-slapping. Actually the response was more in line with the latter, which was heartening. Not because it makes me smug that people liked my post (although it was a post I spent a lot of time writing and thinking about) but because it was obvious from previous discussions on women's issues that among Courtney's readers, feelings on feminism run high and also that it's a controversial ideology.

One reader pointed out that I had not mentioned the subject of abortion at all in the post and wondered why this was so, seeing as the main theme of the post was feminism and religion. I have to say, it's a fair point. When I was writing the post, abortion wasn't something which crossed my mind, if I'm honest. I wanted my piece to focus on the concept of equality, how it relates to Christian teaching, how it has played a part in my life and also the issue of acknowledging privilege when considering our support (or lack of it) for gender issues.

Although I attempted to explain this in a comment, it seemed that the catalyst had been provided and from then on, a steady stream of comments relating to abortion appeared, ranging from the middle-of-the-road and measured to the downright hostile and obnoxious, references to 'man-hating', 'Satan' and 'baby murdering' abound, along with a warning about the 'consequences' of my 'unrepentant sin'.

When you wade into a discussion on a blog which is read by a great many conservative, religious women I think this is to be expected. I'm used to hearing that my opinions on gender go against God's design for women and yes, there were a few comments along those lines. But anti-choice anger is not really the sort of reaction I regularly encounter, associating as I do with a bunch of feminists and liberals and lefties. It's actually something you encounter far less in the UK and it's vital to understanding the way the abortion debate in the US plays such a huge part in feminism. What I noticed was the way it was instantly able to shut down discussion on most other issues raised in my post.

Once the knives are out regarding abortion, you know a debate is probably going to go downhill. Some readers identifying themselves as anti-choice said that this issue alone meant they would not have anything to do with the feminist movement or express support for women's rights. The call for rights was fine when it meant getting women the vote, but from the 60s onwards, it just went too far. That in itself was one of the misconceptions I was attempting to address in my post but I think that went unnoticed by some.

Yesterday I was reading a post by a woman who had a lot of anger about the way the polarization of the abortion debate excludes and hurts women; she spoke with particular reference towards women of colour and people with disabilities. She spoke a lot of sense. I was reminded of the neverending debate raging in the media and on blogs this past year over whether anti-choice Republican women should be 'allowed' to call themselves feminists. And I thought harder about how it was so easy for people to start being silenced and debate to be shut down once people mentioned it over at Courtney's blog - at the expense of wider discussion about women's issues and the inclusion of women who feel their opinion falls somewhere in the middle of the two camps.

A friend from the US who identifies as pro-life told me that those on her side of the debate see the pro-choice contingent in the same way: just waiting to storm in and initiate smackdown so that debate gets no further. Along with gay rights, it's the issue at the heart of right vs left, anti-liberal and anti-religious suspicion and hatred Stateside. It frustrates her and it frustrates me because it's one of the main barriers to religious women having anything to do with feminists and feminism and supporting pro-woman causes.

In no way should we dismiss the issue of reproductive rights and pretend it's not a major problem. At present it's unavoidable, due to the number of attacks being mounted against women and their wellbeing. But the way it's such a dealbreaker, such a catalyst for drama and personal attacks at the expense of other discussions about issues facing women is really problematic. It's hard to think about how it can be addressed and I wonder if it's even possible, in much the same vein as the porn debate, but it's been playing on my mind since Sunday.

Photo credit: Msciba's Flickr

Anti-choice pickets hit London

US-style anti-choice tactics have crossed the pond this month as part of a religious initiative to picket abortion clinics.

For the first time, protestors have been targeting a UK clinic – Marie Stopes House in central London, which was one of the country’s first abortion clinics.

Reports have suggested that women entering the clinic have been ‘harassed’ and given leaflets containing dubious information – such as the unfounded claim that women who have had abortions have an increased risk of breast cancer.

Staff at the centre also claim that they are being filmed walking in to work, which has raised worries that the actions of the protestors are mirroring those of the more extreme anti-choice activists in the US.

The protests are being run by 40 Days For Life, an organisation which formed in Texas in 2004 and since 2007 has run yearly 40-day campaigns of prayer, vigils and pickets at abortion clinics in locations all over the US.

This year’s campaign is also taking place at various locations in Canada, Australia, Denmark, England and Northern Ireland. According to the organisation’s website:

“40 Days for Life takes a determined, peaceful approach to showing local communities the consequences of abortion in their own neighborhoods, for their own friends and families.”

The London protest boasts an army of 500 mostly Catholic volunteers who are keeping the vigil going for 12 hours each day.

The past two years have seen the anti-choice movement in the UK take things up a notch and make efforts to reduce the cut-off limit for abortions. Although Parliament eventually voted against lowering the limit in 2008, now-prominent members of the government such as David Cameron and William Hague had voted to reduce the cut-off to 22 weeks. Some MPs voted for cut-off point as low as 12 weeks.

And more recently, an early day motion has been tabled which would require women seeking an abortion on mental health grounds to have counselling and assessments and be warned of the consequences of what they are about to do.

Although the 40 Days For Life initiative is supposedly peaceful it marks another shift in the way anti-choice activists are operating here. We’ve had the misleading leaflets and videos that use inaccurate science and shaming tactics already – now come the pickets, which could prove extremely upsetting for women who might have already had to make some really difficult choices and may not be in the best state of mind.

Just this week, an American father has achieved notoriety by filming the way his wife was treated by protestors as she entered a clinic, then berating the activists himself. Aaron Gouveia and his wife were on their way to end her pregnancy of 16 weeks, having discovered their baby was suffering from a congenital condition, was missing internal organs and had zero chance of survival.

The video he recorded on his phone has been featured on several major news sites and has proved that some anti-choice activists are happy to terrorise women no matter what their circumstances may be.

Of course it’s not just their attitude towards patients which could be a problem. As we all know, this movement which supposedly believes in the sanctity of life hasn’t done a very good job of demonstrating this with regard to healthcare professionals over the last few decades.

National Abortion Federation statistics show that since 1977, anti-choice activists have been responsible for eight murders, 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery, and 3 kidnappings committed against abortion providers.

In addition, there have been 41 bombings of clinics, 173 arsons, 91 attempted bombings or arsons, 619 bomb threats, 1630 incidents of trespassing and 1264 incidents of vandalism.

Many anti-abortion groups remain committed to peaceful activism only but Abortion Rights UK has already noted a surge in protests recently – this could help to pave the way for extremism and more violent actions.

In the next few months we’re likely to see the government focused mostly solving the country’s economic issues. Whatever’s on the MPs’ agenda, it’s important for us not to forget that a core of people and organisations committed to limiting a woman’s right to choose is growing - and that they’re continuing to pose a threat, even as women continue to fight for safe access to terminations in Northern Ireland and we hear more shocking accounts of backstreet abortions there.

With many more prominent members of the new government holding socially conservative views, it’s definitely going to be an issue to watch closely in the near future.

This post originally featured on BitchBuzz. Image via internets_dairy's Flickr

Blogs, a murder trial and a football game: what's fuelling the abortion debate this month

The trial of Scott Roeder, the man accused of shooting late-term abortion doctor George Tiller is now underway in Kansas.

Roeder, who is charged with first degree murder, confessed to shooting Dr Tiller on May 31st last year – although he has now pleaded not guilty. The physician, whose clinic was one of only three US clinics providing abortions after the 21st week of pregnancy, was shot at his church in Wichita. He had already survived one assassination attempt and endured years of anti-abortion violence.

Roeder’s attorneys are pressing for the charge to be changed to voluntary manslaughter, defined by Kansas law as “an unreasonable but honest belief that circumstances existed that justified deadly force”. In his confession last November, Roeder claimed that he was “defending innocent life” which he believes justified his actions.

While anti-choice organisations – some of which had branded Dr Tiller a “murderer” and an “evil man” - are pleased that Roeder has been able to state his case, pro-choice groups have spoken out to say that a voluntary manslaughter verdict would pave the way for yet more violence against abortion providers.

Since the 1970s, anti-choice extremists have waged war on clinics and doctors across the USA. A feature on late-term abortionist Dr Warren Hern in last Sunday’s Observer put the total of violent acts to date at eight murders, 17 attempted murders, 406 death threats, 179 assaults, and four kidnappings. Dr Hern, now the only practitioner in the US performing late-term abortions, summed up Dr Tiller’s murder:

“This was a cold-blooded, brutal, political assassination that is the logical consequence of 35 years of hate speech and incitement to violence by people from the highest levels of American society…”

The Tiller murder trial comes at a time when the abortion debate is once again making plenty of headlines both in the newspapers and across the blogosphere. January 22nd saw the 37th anniversary of Roe vs Wade, when people all over the globe blogged for choice and anti-abortion protestors took part in the annual March For Life. President Obama also issued a statement reaffirming his support for a woman’s right to choose and the issue continues to play a key role in the debate on healthcare reform.

Even the Super Bowl is caught up in the most recent controversies – next month’s broadcast of the game will feature an advertisement - sponsored by Christian group Focus on the Family - which is expected to involve an anti-abortion message.

The 30 second slot will feature college football star Tim Tebow and his mother. Several online petitions have called for CBS to pull the ad and critics quite rightly say that a prominent sports event should not be used as an excuse to promote an issue which is one of the most divisive in US politics.

Dr Tiller’s murder reminds us that the public profile of the anti-choice movement in the US continues to be defined by violence and extremism.

Alongside the murders and the death threats, there’s the shouting of abuse at women entering family planning clinics, the posters emblazoned with photos which supposedly show aborted foetuses, the lies that abortion causes cancer and mental illness and repeated attempts to further restrict women’s access to safe, legal terminations.

The majority of anti-choice individuals and groups are religious and make much of their belief in the ‘sanctity of life’ and other Christian values. The fact that some demonstrate these loving, caring values by committing murder and assault, screaming abuse at people and putting women’s lives in danger makes it impossible to respect them.

In fact, it only serves to highlight further why they must not be allowed to exert further influence - so that reproductive rights do not end up being restricted more than they already are.

This piece was orginally featured at BitchBuzz. Image from AnyaLogic's Flickr.