Over the years, I have come to appreciate the reproductive health and justice movement as an international feminist and human rights struggle. There are a myriad of connections and lessons. We can all learn from each other.
The public health statistics of abortion restriction and illegal abortion in the world are grim. But we can use these numbers—which represent real flesh-and-blood women—to inspire us to make changes.
An alarming number of physicians do not feel obligated to tell their patients about certain medical procedures they morally oppose. Often falling into this category are teen birth control and abortion. A recently published study in the New England Journal of Medicine, led by Dr. Farr Curlin, a bioethicist at the University of Chicago has brought forth new information. The researchers surveyed 1,144 doctors from all around the US and found some truly disturbing facts about medical care in this country. Many doctors who morally oppose certain treatments do not feel obligated to refer people elsewhere for care they do not wish to provide.
Talk of sexual and reproductive health in strictly political terms leads to the loaded catch-phrase captured by social conservatives a generation ago: family values. In purely political terms, family values have no party or ideology, we all come from families with values. Talking about our values, and framing our policy discussions in ways that connect with people where they live, and not in the abstract, is one reason progressive candidates were successful in the 2006 elections and why there is so much hope for this as the start of a truly progressive generation.
Two years ago George Lakoff and the Rockridge Institute stepped into a debate over use of the word "choice" in reproductive rights with The Nation's Katha Pollitt. That debate, in part, inspired many groups to think differently about framing values issues. In this recently released video, Lakoff reintroduces the foundation of that debate, looking at family values from a nurturing model, one where children are supported, loved and encouraged to be nurturing and accepting; which is preferred to a strict, domineering, paternalistic model favored by social conservatives.
Sad, sad news from Nicaragua, where another young mother has died as a result of the newlawprohibitingabortion under any circumstances—including when a pregnant woman's life is at risk. On February 7 the Nicaraguan daily El Nuevo Diarioreported that 22-year-old Francis Zamora died at Managua's Hospital Berta Calderón on January 30 from a massive infection resulting from a miscarriage that had begun days earlier. Claiming that their hands were tied by the new law, doctors had refused to perform a D&C (procedure to empty the uterus) that could have saved her life until it was too late. Francis leaves behind her mother, as well as three children, ages six, five, and one and a half.
Talk about a film that has all of the elements of great human drama and pits the marginalized against the powerful. Such is the story of "Rosita," an hour-long documentary by award-winning filmmakers Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater.
In January 2003, the international press broke the story of a pregnant 9-year-old Nicaraguan girl who had been raped in Costa Rica. Rosita, as she comes to be called to preserve her anonymity, is the daughter of illiterate campesinos who had moved to Costa Rica to pick coffee, the classic story of impoverished immigrants seeking a better life. Rosita is a carefree and intelligent 8-year-old girl who loves her life in the country and loves dolls, dogs, chicken, and hens. She is in the second grade and learning to read and write; she paints and draws the world around her, and is elected "Miss Congeniality" at her school. Her child's world is shattered when she is raped by a 22-year-old neighbor who lures her into his home with promises of sweet tangerines and colorful TV shows.
The United States may be raising some of the most sexually confused adolescents in the world. Movies, advertising, web sites, music, and television shows give teens the message that “everyone is doing it,” while the official policy of the federal government and 46 states is abstinence-only until marriage. And most parents, schools, and religious institutions say little to nothing to adolescents about their sexual behaviors, sexual orientation, and sexual health, even though one recent report revealed that the vast majority of Americans have been having sex before marriage for decades.
Caught between “just do it” and “just say no,” with little moral guidance for making healthy decisions, more than six in 10 adolescents engage in sexual intercourse by the time they leave high school. Each year, about 800,000 of them become pregnant and approximately 25 percent contract a sexually transmitted disease.
Her parents lovingly named her their "pillow angel" because she is "so sweet and stays right where we place her—usually on a pillow." But the simple and ethereal term belies the controversy that has surrounded Ashley, the "pillow angel", and her parents for the last six weeks.
In January of this year, a story broke that unleashed a media torrent and a worldwide discussion outwardly centered on medical ethics. Unpeel the layers, however, and you find a story that shares a great deal in common with the quest for reproductive justice and what it means to be able to sincerely and lovingly make a choice that may seem, to outsiders, the wrong choice—and therefore the unacceptable choice—but an individual's loving choice all the same. At the center of the story, Ashley, a now nine-year-old girl who was diagnosed at 3 months old with "static encephalopathy of unknown etiology"—an unchanging brain abnormality that sentences Ashley to live the mental and developmental life of a three month-old infant while her body continues to age normally. Ashley cannot move or talk but she is expected to live a long life. To read the story of Ashley's early life on her parent's blog is both heartbreaking and beautiful.
In 2006, only one female condom was available for every 100 women worldwide. This disturbing fact won't surprise anyone who's ever tried to locate female condoms. My first attempt to purchase them resulted in a confused pharmacy technician showing me various spermicidal gels, vaginal sponges and a male condom marketed for women. Before traipsing to pharmacies across DC, I decided to call around. Of the 22 locations I called, 12 of which were pharmacies, only five carried female condoms: two Planned Parenthoods, two student health centers, and an HIV/AIDS clinic. None of these locations were open after business hours and the closest provider was a 20-minute metro ride from my office.
The fact that I had to traverse the city to find a female condom points to greater problems than those presented for sexual spontaneity. This experience starkly highlights a failure to market and distribute one of the most effective prevention methods, and the only available female-controlled method, against the sexual transmission of HIV.
I was thrilled to hear that Portuguese citizens voted this weekend to legalize abortion up to 10 weeks, in a public referendum that was initiated and strongly supported by Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates. Portugal is one of the few European countries (along with Poland, Malta, and Ireland) where abortion is still heavily restricted, and as a result, it currently has one of the highest rates of unsafe abortion on the continent--at least 20,000 illegal procedures are performed every year. Portugal is also known for its litigious approach to the abortion issue--five years ago, the government prosecuted a whopping 49 individuals accused of somehow participating in 17 women's illegal abortions, including a handful of taxi drivers. One Portuguese midwife is still serving an 8-year prison sentence as a result.
