Tag Archives: United Nations

The Racist Roots of the War on Sex Ed

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JBS-supported billboard accusing Martin Luther King Jr. of communist ties. Image: Bob Fitch photography archive, Stanford University Libraries

The 1960s were a decade of dramatic social and political changes, many of them catalyzed by the shock of assassinations or the dawn of culture-changing technology like the birth control pill.

It would seem, then, that by the end of the decade it would have taken an especially grave development to prompt warnings of a “subversive monstrosity,” a “mushrooming program” that was forced upon an unwitting public through an insidious campaign of “falsehoods, deceptions, pressures, and pretenses.”

The John Birch Society published those words 50 years ago this month in their January 1969 newsletter. What atrocity spurred JBS founder Robert Welch Jr. to write this clarion call? No trigger warning is needed for this one. He was alerting his readers to the “filthy Communist plot” known as sex education.

It wasn’t just premarital and extramarital sex that stirred anxieties. So, too, did interracial sex.

Welch’s alarmist language was common currency in an organization that was known for its anti-Semitism and its espousal of conspiracy theories. They were traits that kept the Birchers’ numbers modest throughout the 1960s and ’70s — an estimated 20,000 to 100,000 members — and led to the group’s decline in later decades. The JBS, a far-right group that advocated for limited government, got its name from a Baptist missionary and military pilot who was killed by Chinese communists — an early martyr of the Cold War.

However fringe they may have been, Welch’s words signaled the beginning of intensive backlash against sex ed among a broader base of conservatives. Within months, that backlash put organizations like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Medical Association on the defensive. As the debate raged, the NEA sought allies nationwide in churches, civic groups, and the media to save sex ed. By the following year, the NEA was reporting that sex ed programs had been “canceled, postponed, or curtailed” in 13 states and were under scrutiny in 20 state legislatures. Continue reading →

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women: November 25, 2018

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This Sunday, November 25, is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

The 2018 theme is Orange the World: #HearMeToo and like previous editions, the date marks the launch of 16 days of activism that will conclude on 10 December 2018, International Human Rights Day.

I asked to write about this subject partly because I had written about Brett Kavanaugh before Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came forward publicly to accuse Kavanaugh of attempted rape while they were in high school, and before the hearing where they testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, activating post-traumatic symptoms for me and most of the women I know. Not only did Ford’s testimony ring true for me and thousands of other women; the attacks that followed from Kavanaugh himself and the all-male Republicans on the committee felt like personal assaults. During and immediately after the hearing, women around the country told personal stories of assaults, often stories they had never shared before, years or decades after their assaults.

The trauma of sexual assault victims is deepened by their further victimization by law enforcement, the legal system, and other institutions they report the abuse to. In yet another instance of the continuation of abuse, Ford is still, all these weeks later, receiving death threats, and is unable to return to her home or workplace. Continue reading →

Brothers in Arms, Part 4: The Gathering Storm of Patriots and Plainclothes Politicians

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This article is our final installment in a series that explores the historical and contemporary links between racial intolerance and opposition to abortion. Previously, this series examined the connections that developed in the 1980s between white supremacists and the anti-abortion movement, which bred a growing extremism and led to the first assassination of an abortion provider in 1993. This installment looks at the threats that developed in the aftermath.

1996 Planned Parenthood publication detailing militia movement links to anti-abortion terrorism

On March 11, 1993, Michael Frederick Griffin approached Dr. David Gunn outside his Pensacola clinic and shot him in the back three times, reportedly shouting, “Don’t kill any more babies!” Griffin, who had been radicalized by former Klansman and anti-abortion crusader John Burt, committed the first assassination of an abortion provider in the U.S. The following year, 1994, saw a record four murders and eight attempted murders by anti-abortion extremists, and more than half of the estimated 1,500 abortion clinics in the U.S. were targets of anti-abortion crimes, such as arson or bombings, in the first seven months of 1994. Although the next two years would see decreases in some types of anti-abortion crimes, clinics have never been free of threats in any of the years since.

Since the 1990s, anti-government groups have stirred racial hatred and anti-abortion extremism on the right.

Just weeks after Dr. Gunn’s assassination, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ended a 51-day armed standoff at a compound in Waco, Texas, the home of a religious cult known as the Branch Davidians. The standoff began in response to reports that the cult was abusing children and stockpiling illegal weapons. The siege ended on April 19, 1993 — 25 years ago this month — when the cult’s leader, David Koresh, ordered his followers to ignite fires that soon engulfed the compound in flames. By the end of the standoff, 75 people had lost their lives.

The federal government’s actions in Waco had overwhelming public support — 70 percent according to a poll conducted shortly after the siege — but to many right-wing activists, who held a deep distrust of the federal government, Waco was a gross display of heavy-handed government intrusion; tyrannical, military-style policing; and violent intolerance of religious liberty. Waco thus became a rallying cry for a growing, militant movement in the political right. Continue reading →

In the Wake of Roe v. Wade: The Helms Amendment

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USAID is essential in reducing infant and maternal mortality in the developing world.

This Sunday, December 17, is the 44th anniversary of the Helms Amendment.

What is the Helms Amendment and why should we care about it?

The simple answer to the first part of that question is that it is language added to the 1973 foreign aid bill. It reads:

No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for the performance of abortion as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.

The Helms Amendment was the first federal legislative attack on abortion rights in the post-Roe era.

But of course nothing to do with abortion is ever simple. Think of the Senate in December 1973, just 11 months after the Roe v. Wade decision made abortion legal. In the intervening months the war in Vietnam ended; Henry Kissinger visited China; the Watergate hearings and the first trials of the conspirators began; Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned after being convicted of accepting bribes; President Nixon named Gerald Ford to replace Agnew; there were bloody coups in Greece and Chile; the Yom Kippur War was fought in the Middle East; Saudi Arabia led the oil embargo against the United States, raising gasoline prices from 25 cents per gallon to more than a dollar; Nixon tried to stop the Watergate investigation by firing the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox; the top two people in the Justice Department resigned rather than do so, leaving Robert Bork to carry out that order, in what became known as the Saturday Night Massacre; eventually Nixon was compelled to turn over his tapes after fighting the order in court.

In other words, 1973 was a turbulent year, a time of great change and political turmoil in Washington. Continue reading →

July 11 Is UN World Population Day

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The following guest post comes to us via Esteban Camarena, a graduate student at the University of Arizona. He is currently in Brazil doing field research on politics and public health policy. He can be reached at estebanc@email.arizona.edu.

The world’s population is on the way to reaching 8.6 billion people by 2030 — that’s approximately 1.1 billion more inhabitants on the planet in less than 13 years. If we break it down further, that’s 84.6 million more people per year, 7.1 million per month, 1.8 million per week, or 252,0000 people added every day, roughly.

July 11 is UN World Population Day, which aims to create awareness of population growth issues and their relation to the environment and development. With the world’s population increasing every year, the limited amount of natural resources combined with the effect of climate change hinders any country’s ability to achieve sustainable economic growth and development. As the global population continues to grow, so too does the demand for food, water, energy, and land.

An investment in women’s health is an investment in families’ economic stability and a country’s development.

The inability to meet these demands will inevitably lead to malnutrition, poverty, and conflict between nations and people. This depletion of resources would particularly affect developing countries where the greatest amount of population growth is expected; in fact, more than half of the anticipated growth will occur in Africa, followed by Asia and Latin America. Among other factors, population growth is concentrated in these developing regions due to limited or lack of access to reproductive health care, family planning services, and sex education. Continue reading →

Pro-Choice Friday News Rundown

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  • Some happy news to share right off the bat — Epic TV Goddess Shonda Rhimes has joined the board of Planned Parenthood! (ABC News)

  • Dr. Willie Parker, a prominent physician and abortion provider, visited The Daily Show to talk about the barriers faced by women seeking abortion and the religious beliefs that inform his pro-choice values. What an astonishingly brave and compassionate man. (Comedy Central)
  • The Democrats’ filibuster was successful, so Republicans went ahead with the “nuclear” option for Neil Gorsuch’s appointment to the Supreme Court. We know how they roll, so it’s not a surprise. “Better to change the rules altogether than play the game fairly!” –Republicans (MSNBC)
  • Can you imagine being CONVICTED of molestation for changing a baby’s diaper? Arizona was very close to enacting this, but luckily the law was struck down. (Slate)
  • This is scary: Anti-abortion groups in various states have been  tracking women’s visits to Planned Parenthood and other health clinics via cellphone data (a practice known as “geofencing”), and then sending “pro-life” digital ads to their smartphones! Massachusetts is not having it, but what about the rest of us? (Boston Globe)
  • Ivanka Trump, who purports to be all about the “economic empowerment” of women, held a meeting with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards in the weeks following the inauguration and has since done NOT A DAMN THING to advance THE most crucial aspect of women’s livelihoods — reproductive rights. (Politico)
  • The global gag rule, recently put back into effect by President Trump (wonder where Ivanka was???), will only “increase the likelihood of perilous, sometimes fatal [abortion] procedures.” Thanks in advance for contributing to the deaths of scores of women around the world, 45. (Lenny Letter)
  • Republicans have a remarkable knack for taking something that sucks and literally making it suck even worse. Kudos and cheers to Trumpcare 2.0 failing just as badly as the first version. (Think Progress)
  • The spike in oral cancer cases is spurring more and more doctors to order parents to vaccinate their young children against HPV. This goes for girls AND boys! (Chicago Tribune)
  • Speaking of HPV, a quarter of American men have cancer-causing strains of the virus! (Jezebel)
  • One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing non-scientific hysteria surrounding birth control. “Oh, I tried the Pill but it made me CRAZY!” Or, “I gained x number of pounds taking birth control!” Or, “I took the Pill but it made me super-depressed!” Well, science has spoken: Birth control has not been proven to cause depression. Also, please keep in mind, there are dozens upon dozens of different types of birth control pills. They don’t all have the same side effects! (NY Times)
  • Here’s How John McCain and Jeff Flake’s Votes Could End Up Screwing Over 30,000 Arizona Women (Phoenix New Times)
  • “The Donald” has halted all U.S. grants to the United Nations Population Fund, an international humanitarian aid organization that provides reproductive health care and works to end child marriage and female genital cutting in more than 150 countries. (HuffPo)

World AIDS Day: Fighting the Stigma Is Half the Battle

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RibbonThey say words can never hurt you, but in certain parts of the world, there are three letters that can take away everything dear to you: HIV.

Can you imagine having your family disown you? What if doctors refused to treat you, even with basic care? What would it feel like if you were not allowed to pursue any form of education? How about if you had no possibility of a future with a romantic partner?

We will never make strides in preventing HIV transmission until we confront the taboos that surround it.

This is reality for millions of men, women, and children in sub-Saharan Africa who have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. As of 2013, that number was 24.7 million, which accounts for the vast majority of the world’s total reported cases, which by 2014 approached 37 million people, 2.6 million of whom were children. In 2013 alone, 1.5 million sub-Saharan Africans were newly infected. Since the first case was reported in 1981, a certain stigma has always lingered around the disease. Many in the United States refer to it as the “gay disease” or accuse those infected of bestiality. They may say that someone who has been diagnosed should avoid intimacy, believing that a person with HIV is incapable of functional relationships without infecting their partner. In Africa, the implications are even more harsh. Often believed to be a “curse from God,” many regions exile an infected person from their community.

Worse, the stigma does not stop with individuals. It bleeds into the legal, political, and economic arenas as well. This is true worldwide. Some places have prosecuted women for transmitting the virus to their child, or have prosecuted individuals for not disclosing their positive status even if they have reached an undetectable viral load through antiretroviral therapy (ART). The discrimination surrounding a positive diagnosis is cited as the primary hurdle in addressing prevention and care. Continue reading →