Tag Archives: El Salvador

Women Against Forced Breeding

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Justice for Jane demonstration. Photo: Karen Thurston

Why are these women, awash in a sea of “pink slips,” all of whom have had abortions, standing on the steps in front of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in late February 2018, demonstrating live on YouTube? Why are they demanding the firing of the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, Scott Lloyd, the bureaucrat who forces young women to breed against their will?

Why are we protesting? Because we are not having it! And neither is Sen. Patty Murray, who took to the floor of the Senate to amplify our views, pointing out that, once again, our government has overstepped its authority, ignored the rule of law, and allowed one man’s ideology and/or religion to determine the rules for women in his custody. And neither is the House Pro-Choice Caucus having it, as members lined up soon after the protest to sign a “pink slip” to terminate Lloyd.

House Pro-Choice Caucus members Zoe Lofgren, Diana DeGette, and Jerrold Nadler sign “pink slip” to terminate Scott Lloyd. Photo: @RepJerryNadler

Here is the latest story in the long line of stories about our government’s disrespect for women.

Teenager Jane Doe escaped an abusive Salvadoran family and entered the United States as an undocumented, unaccompanied minor. She was detained in Texas and placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is responsible for sheltering these youth. When she discovered she was pregnant she asked for an abortion. So, imagine Jane, alone in a foreign country, uncertain of her immigration prospects, but holding onto dreams for a better future for herself. Unfortunately for her, the ORR is headed by an ideologue named Scott Lloyd. Continue reading →

Book Club: Her Body, Our Laws

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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 →

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

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  • Let’s start this week’s rundown on a ridiculous note. Apparently a bunch of weirdos think a sticker on the head of a penis is an alternative to a condom. #FacePalm (Slate)
  • 45’s administration defunding evidence-based sex ed in favor of abstinence-only propaganda will not make America great. (Tucson Weekly)
  • Rep. Ben Ray Luján — the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — became the latest to suggest that 2018 Democratic candidates don’t have to be pro-choice. While he didn’t clarify this comment, what I’m hoping he means is that Democratic candidates can be personally pro-life, as long as they are active in protecting the LEGAL RIGHT women have to abortions. If this isn’t what he meant, he’s sadly misguided and has no business representing or leading the party. (NY Mag)
  • More on that? This Atlantic article about the Democratic Party’s “abortion dilemma” is also concerning. It worries me that we continue to hear about “pro-life” Democrats and whether or not they should be “welcomed” by members the party and supported when they run for office. First of all, pro-choice people are also pro-life. We value the lives of all people. We value and respect the choices of women who wish to bring life into the world and women who do not. I think it’s perfectly acceptable for a Democrat not to embrace abortion personally. What is not acceptable is to legislate in a manner that disempowers women from making choices regarding their wombs. It would be a GRAVE mistake for Democrats to support candidates who would cruelly force women to endure unwanted pregnancies. Reproductive rights are human rights. This should not represent a “dilemma” to a party that purports to care about human rights. (The Atlantic)
  • Virginia, why is there a need for you to go down the forced vaginal ultrasound path other than to humiliate and violate women? (Rewire)
  • Texas, why is it easier to buy a gun that has the potential to kill scores of people than to access abortion in your state? What a shame we live in a society that so clearly values punishing women for their sexual behavior over protecting living, breathing people. (Houston Chronicle)
  • Other wretched news out of Texas? They’re looking to restrict insurers from covering abortion. What other safe, legal medical procedure would they dare try this on? Can’t think of any? Me neither. (Texas Tribune)
  • Renee Bracey Sherman wrote a great piece for The New York Times about the concern anti-abortion activists claim to have for “black lives” terminated by abortion, but not via police killings. She states, “Far too often, compassion for black lives doesn’t extend beyond the womb or to the black women carrying that womb.” (NYT)
  • Jessica Valenti of The Guardian reminds us all that pregnancy has the potential to be lethal and that no one should be forced to give birth against their will. (The Guardian)
  • A nonprofit in the U.S. is helping throw women in El Salvador in prison for having abortions. Disgusting. (Slate)