Book Club: Her Body, Our Laws

Posted on January 29, 2018 by Matt

By 2014, law professor Michelle Oberman was no stranger to El Salvador. She had already spent four years making research trips to the Central American country, but that June she would need a local guide during her travels. An activist had volunteered to accompany her on the interview she needed to conduct, a task that required a two-and-a-half-hour trip outside the city to an area that is not well mapped — in fact, to a village where there are “no signs or numbers” to help visitors find their way among the cinder-block houses and the patchwork of land where the clucks and lowing of livestock punctuate the silence.

Paid maternity leave, monthly child allowances, and affordable day care and health care decrease demand for abortion.

Once in the village, it took Oberman and her guide an additional 45 minutes to find the house they needed to visit. Inside, a curtain was all that separated the main room from a small bedroom in the back. A bucket and outdoor basin served as a shower, and an outhouse completed the bathroom facilities. The living conditions there were not uncommon — not in a country where roughly 40 percent of the population lives in poverty.

That poverty was both the cause and consequence of a conflict between left-wing rebels and government forces that lasted from 1979 to 1992. In many ways, that conflict set the stage for the abortion war in El Salvador, the subject of Oberman’s recently published book, Her Body, Our Laws: On the Frontlines of the Abortion War from El Salvador to Oklahoma (Beacon Press, 2018).

From Civil War to Abortion War

In the early 1980s, the small republic of El Salvador was in the grip of civil war, while in the U.S., debates raged over the emerging Sanctuary Movement that was aiding Salvadoran and other Central American refugees. The movement began in 1981, when Quaker activist Jim Corbett and Presbyterian Pastor John Fife, both of Tucson, pledged to “protect, defend, and advocate for” the many people fleeing warfare and political turmoil in El Salvador and neighboring countries. Tucson was at the forefront of the movement as refugees crossed through Mexico and arrived at the Arizona border. Continue reading →

Affirming the Autonomy of Indigenous Women

Posted on November 13, 2017 by Serena Freewomyn

November is National American Indian Heritage Month. As we celebrate the positive sides of Indigenous Nations’ histories, we must acknowledge that the U.S. government has both robbed Native Americans of their land and, through the policies of the Indian Health Service division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, made it difficult for Indigenous people to access quality health care.

Indian Health Service (IHS) was established in 1955 with the stated goal of improving the health care of Native Americans living on reservations. However, Indigenous women who came into IHS clinics for something as common as vaccinations were often sterilized without their consent. During the 1960s and 1970s, 25 to 50 percent of women who visited IHS clinics (approximately 3,406 women) were sterilized without their knowledge. Methods of sterilization included partial or full hysterectomies, and tubal ligations.

Bodily autonomy is about having the power to decide for oneself whether and when to bear children.

The IHS had a clear objective: population control (aka “genocide”). Census data collected during the 1970s showed that Native Americans had birthrates that were much higher than white communities. According to census data, the average American Indian woman had 3.79 children, while white women had 1.79 children. The 1980 census revealed that the average birthrate for white women was 2.14, while the birthrate for Indigenous women was 1.99. You don’t have to be a math whiz to see that this is a drastic contrast.

Myla Vicenti Carpio, a professor of American Indian studies at Arizona State University, explains: Continue reading →

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Stacey S.

More woman-shaming from the abstinence-only crowd.

Abstinence-only education: Showing kids every day how filthy and disgusting they automatically become if they have sex. Which symbol of filth are you, fellow non-abstinent people? A used piece of tape? Chewed-up gum? It’s like a “Choose Your Own Adventure” of how gross they can make you feel for doing something human beings are mostly naturally inclined to do. Anyway, I’m a black woman so I think the most fitting choice for me would be “dirty chocolate.” (Think Progress)
Here are all the states committing egregious sex education blunders. It’s pretty much sad all over, folks. (Huff Po)
Maybe that’s why 80 percent of teens have sex without first being educated about it. (Daily Beast)
Pro-choice Arizonans, we have successfully gained an extended injunction against the new and terrible legislation that would cut off women’s access to medication abortion in the early stages of pregnancy and instead force them to undergo a surgical abortion — assuming they can access it. (Phoenix New Times)
The teen birth rate may be at record lows, but the CDC says (and we agree) it’s still too high in the grand scheme of things! (NBC News)
You know how the Arizona Department of Health Services focuses so much on stuff like disease prevention and control, vaccinations, environmental health, maintaining vital records, and all of that unimportant junk? Well, the sinister, diabolical forces at the Center for Arizona Policy want them to take time away from all that crap to start doing surprise inspections at abortion clinics. Did something seriously dangerous or illegal happen at an Arizona abortion clinic to spur this on? Nope! (East Valley Tribune)
There are 30 states that require pregnant women to remain on life support no matter what. THIRTY STATES! Living will or not. Do we need any more proof that women are largely seen as incubators and not people? Repeating this again: THIRTY STATES!!! (RH Reality Check)
Sometimes when I hear Republicans speaking, I feel as if I’m drowning in a tsunami of stupidity. Missouri state Rep. Chuck Gatschenberger says that buying a car and selecting carpet are decisions just as major as considering abortion. These are things he personally has to think about a lot before just plunging right in, you know?! That is actually the logic this clown is using to try to mandate a 72-hour waiting period for women considering an abortion. It’s as if he and the rest of the forced birth advocates don’t understand that most women have already thought about what they’d do in the event of an unintended pregnancy. It’s something almost all sexually active, heterosexual women have contemplated. These “waiting periods” have been shown to have virtually no effect on a woman’s final decision whether or not to have an abortion. Please, Rep. Gatschenberger, get out of the legislature and go pick out some flooring. (Salon)