Happy Blog For Choice Day

A government that serves women’s interest must acknowledge that it is a women’s right to decide for herself if and when to bear children. Without this right our sexuality, morality and citizenship are automatically constrained.

Americans can’t count on the Supremes to protect our reproductive rights. If there was any question after the appointment of Roberts and Alito, Gonzales vs. Chart et al. made that abundantly clear. The court okayed the federal abortion ban on the grounds that: we need to protect women from decisions they might regret, and besides, abortion is yucky.* To me, the decision was a wake up call: the continued legality of reproductive health care from abortion to birth control depends on our ability to elect pro-choice candidates.

Here’s the catch: we can’t just vote pro-choice and live happily ever after. Reproductive rights are a necessary but not sufficient condition for reproductive justice. 35 years after Roe v. Wade legal abortion is still a practical impossibility if you live hours from the nearest abortion provider in a state with mandatory waiting periods. Simillarly, to a woman who lacks money for food, daycare and healthcare parenting can become a non-option. We must work for a world in which all women can access comprehensive reproductive health care as well as the resources necessary to parent. In this atmosphere of reproductive justice reproductive rights can achieve their full significance.

*This was the wisdom of Kennedy---- our new swing vote!

Timeless Humor, Unfortunately

From the Onion, October 4, 2000:

Interviewer- Last week, the FDA approved the controversial French abortion pill RU-486, permitting non-surgical abortions in the U.S. for the first time . . . . What do you think?

Patrick Klennert, TV Repairman: "Now, hold on there. Isn't there a line in The Bible specifically prohibiting safe, non-invasive, affordable medical procedures for women?"

The piece has stuck in my mind since I first read it, in the summer of 2001. Rereading it, I chuckle because it is a fake interview, in a spoof newspaper. The realness of it stings. As I think about it, my laughter begins to come from a place of cynicism, nervousness, and then fades out.

The anti-choice cause du jour is trying to deny women in Aurora, Illinois health care access by blocking the opening of a Planned Parenthood health center there. These folks aren’t just opposed to abortion, they are also opposed to the preventative care (including birth control) the center offers.

Why? I don’t care to speculate. Following their unreasonable reasoning is a distraction from the issue at hand: extremist protestors, with ties to violent individuals, are trying to block the opening of a clinic, not on any reasonable legal grounds, but because they are opposed to women having sex without giving birth nine months later.

For those of you who’ve missed my subtle cues, I take this personally. As my current favorite Supreme pointed out last April, in order to achieve equality, a woman must be able to control if and when she has kids. Amen. Furthermore, at their core, anti-birth control arguments rest on a belief that enjoying non procreative sex is immoral. As you might guess, this dyke disagrees.

Counter the protestors by clicking here to display a ribbon in support of the clinic. If you are more ambitiously pro-choice speak up in your community, write a letter to the editor, donate to a clinic. Do something for the care and feeding of our rights. Right now they sure need it.

Supremely Unproductive Jurisprudence

For the briefest second after John Roberts became Chief Justice of the United States I thought “he’s young, which sucks in general, but at least that means we can put to rest worries of having a Chief Justice named Antonin Scalia.” Now that we’ve seen his court in action the thought is NO consolation.

The substance of the school integration decision alone was enough to make Friday’s NY times depressing. On top of it all, the image plastered front in center on the first page gave me the willies. It was a picture of the supremes, grouped according to their votes in the case, and the majority looked right spry compared to the dissenters. One can’t deny it, the neo-cons will leave a legacy.

I am not a legal scholar, or a historian, but a few thoughts inspired by the school integration case:

• Juan Williams has an interesting analysis of the situation. Basically it’s that getting rid of de jure segregation neither got rid of de facto segregation, nor closed the achievement gap between students of color and white students, so we should stop focusing on racial integration, and start focusing on improving all schools, so every kid gets a good education. Yes, every kid should get a good education, but is his idea realistic? We Americans still harbor lots of race and class prejudice, and the successful among us tend to believe society is a meritocracy. Given this climate, I can’t see school reform happening equally across the board, and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to predict that those students who get the short shrift will mostly be poor and/or minorities. Not rocket science, just a reality-based hunch.
• My favorite quotation in Friday's coverage was from a Columbia law professor who worked on Brown: “Following Brown that was massive resistance. This is essentially the rebirth of massive resistance in a more acceptable form” (NYT, 6/29/07).
• I’m not going to re-hash why “color-blindness” is mostly just in practice a way to ignore racism. Take a look at Lesboprof for that, and a compelling reaction to the decision.
• Let’s all keep in mind that ending de jure segregation hasn’t lead to much integration. 53 years after Brown “70% of black students attend schools that are 2/3 black & Hispanic” & “the average while student attends a school that is 80% white” (NY times 6/29/07). Maybe that suggests we haven’t given it enough time. Maybe the socioeconomic, and “white people are afraid of black people” factors that keep us sorted by color will go away, albeit slowly, if we continue business as usual. What I tend to think it suggests is that us white people, yes, myself included, need to acknowledge that we are still benefiting from racism, and work with the entire nation (nope, not just folks who look like us) to change that. Note to the supremes: pretending that law and society are color blind does not count. In the end we will all benefit.

Gonzales v Carhart

Gonzales v Carhartt

The so called partial birth abortion ban doesn’t intend to protect women or fetuses. It isn’t only an effort to end post-viability abortion, it isn’t an effort to “draw a bright line between abortion & infanticide,” as congressmen so smugly claim, nor is it based on medical/public health concerns. It doesn’t even make much sense.

The ban seriously jeopardizes women’s health. We can no longer take for granted the right to make reproductive decisions based on medical knowledge and individual needs. Period. Don’t just notice this in passing. Read Justice Ginsburg’s dissenting opinion (starts on pg 54). Read the majority opinion. Read the law it upholds.

I am angry. Yesterday, when the news broke, I was seeing too much red to see the keyboard. For now the most constructive thing I can say is read the dissenting opinion. Justice Ginsburg gets to the heart of the matter: the federal abortion ban “and the court’s defense of it, cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at” women’s right to an abortion, “a right declared again and again by this Court—and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women’s lives”

March Sanity (In April)

As of today we know one branch of government acknowledges that the E in EPA might stand for something other than (friendly) Environment (for oil tycoons).

An agency whose mission is to “protect human health and the environment” can regulate greenhouse gases (www.epa.gov)? Craziness! One wouldn’t think a whole bunch of litigation would be necessary to arrive at that conclusion. The naïve among us might suppose the EPA would come to that conclusion on its own, based on scientific consensus regarding greenhouse gases and global warming. The naïve among us ignore the power of profits and the inertia of a fossil fuel based economy, I suppose.

Its cool to hear the Supreme Court sees the Clean Air Act as both enforceable and relevant to climate change. Unfortunately, there is a vast gap between today’s ruling and environmental policy that combats global warming. The ruling doesn’t explicitly say the EPA has to regulate greenhouse gases. You can bet there’ll be lots more litigation and lobbying before that happens.

In the meantime we Americans need to get moving. There are so many ways to conserve energy. By choosing to do so en masse we can create economic pressure to develop green products and political pressure that drives green policy. CEOs care about profit, and politicians care about re-election. That is not going to change. If environmentalism is seen as profitable, whether in terms of dollars or votes, these folks will become environmentalists. I am not delusional, just hopeful. There are significant barriers to a mass conservation movement, and change will likely be incremental. I allow myself to hope, though, that Americans will eventually muster the will and creativity to reduce our greenhouse gas output, even if it takes a little sacrifice.

Even though Massachusetts vs. Environmental Protection Agency isn’t revolutionary, I can breathe a sigh of relief. Way to go Supremes. I’d like to drive all 1056 miles round-trip just to give each of you a big hug. Don’t worry, as a token of appreciation for your green sensibilities I’ll hold back.