Apropos of the season–because even for those of us who don’t celebrate Christmas, the imagery is kind of all over the place–I’ve been thinking recently about childbirth and how society treats women as mothers.

A friend just had a beautiful baby boy, her first. She had a long and difficult labor, and described in her blog how one of her doctors wanted to break her water. She told him no, as she wanted to keep the process as natural as possible, and the doctor proceeded to argue with her–while he continued to feel around for her placenta to try to break it.

What is that? What makes a male doctor think he knows better than a mother in labor about when to do what? And what, what makes him think that he can physically invade her body while she’s saying no?

I haven’t talked to my friend about this yet, because she was upset enough as it is. And my knowledge of medical malpractice law in this regard isn’t very extensive. But there are some extremely sketchy consent issues going on there. In fact, it sounds like medical rape.

Fortunately, my friend was attended during the rest of her labor with a more sympathetic female doctor in attendance. But this should, simply put, never happen. A woman in the throes of labor should never have to argue with or fight off a doctor who won’t take no for an answer.

Another close friend of mine has asked me to be an assistant birthing coach for her when she comes due in February. This will be her first child as well. I’ve never witnessed a birth before, and I’m honored that she wants me there. Of course, one thing that I’ll be doing is making sure that her doctors follow her wishes. I’m glad I can be there for her, but again, I shouldn’t have to protect her. Laboring women should be able to trust their doctors to be on their side, to listen when they say “no.” It’s not a complicated problem. We don’t lose our personhood because we’re carrying or delivering a child. Period.

Sound familiar?

The right to choose whether to reproduce is based in the same principle as the right to choose how to bring that child into the world.

Along the lines of personhood and how our society treats women’s bodies, this weekend’s RHReality Check features a very interesting and in my opinion very astute analysis of “The Britney Show”. Never a fan, I’ve really come to feel for Britney Spears in the last few years as she struggles with adulthood and with the pitiless machine of objectification from which she’s never been able to escape. I think Sarah Seltzer sums it up pretty well here:

Many women suffer through at least some of these things. Sure, they do it with a smaller audience, but they often feel the same humiliation when they get caught in sweatpants or with unshaved legs, behave unthinkingly, make bad romantic choices, grow out of their adolescent bodies, get dismissed as crazy, are frowned upon as irresponsible parents or, after giving birth, are desexualized and resented.

It seems that for Britney, and for many of our sisters and friends and mothers and daughters (and daughters-to-be), respect for our personhood is still something we have to fight for.

This is just great. According to Consumerist, a couple went to a Walgreens in Oxford, Mississippi and requested Plan B after presenting photo ID. The first pharmacy employee they encountered asked for proof of insurance (which is unnecessary if the consumer wants to pay for the medication herself). The couple requested to speak with a manager, at which point a pharmacist informed the customers that they were required to wait an hour before obtaining the medication, as well as receive literature on adoption. In the end, the couple got Plan B sans waiting period and adoption information, but apparently the store insisted on writing down the customer’s driver’s license number—not the first time pharmacies have illegitimately collected personal information from customers seeking Plan B.

Hmmm…this sounds familiar. A waiting period? Literature on adoption? For a high-dosage birth control pill that works better the sooner you take it?

This situation appears to be the sinister cousin of the old-fashioned pharmacist refusal—when the attending pharmacist won’t give the customer Plan B and won’t refer the customer to someone who can—the pharmacist resistance. It’s making what can be an uncomfortable situation for many—walking up to a complete stranger in a public store, often with other customers lingering within earshot, and saying, “Hi, I’d like the morning-after pill, please”—even more difficult. It’s the idea that, if enough people are afraid that they will be shamed or asked to do ridiculous things like read a brochure on adoption when they’re just trying to back up their birth control, they just won’t take emergency contraception. Even though the condom broke, or a pill was forgotten, or they just want to have some at home in case they need it some day.

I liken this situation to the spreading of misinformation at “crisis pregnancy centers” and the latest trend to require ultrasounds for women seeking abortions. Each of these scenarios seeks to exploit the position of power the doctor, counselor or pharmacist has over the patient, client or consumer by gleefully conveying misinformation to those in a vulnerable position. (For example, South Dakota requires that providers tell a woman seeking an abortion that the abortion would “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”) Each of these situations operates on the assumption that erecting more barriers to services will finally “teach women” what’s best for them.

I argue that emergency contraception should be available truly over-the-counter, just like Tylenol, because of the drug’s safety and effectiveness at preventing unwanted pregnancies—and because of the prevalence of pharmacist refusals and now pharmacist resistance. A trip to the drugstore to pick up Plan B should not entail a skirmish with pharmacy personnel, misinformation about a required “waiting period,” a lecture about promiscuity, requests for private information, or a brochure about adoption.

-Amanda Allen

This Thanksgiving season, I am thankful for feminist men.

I am thankful for the state of South Dakota’s rejection of its latest near-complete abortion ban initiative. This editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune highlights how opponents of the ban ran a “different and highly effective campaign…It not only connected with voters, but it suggests that future debates in South Dakota and elsewhere can and should move beyond absolutes and old rhetoric.”

I am thankful for an administration that is on our side and ready to work to overturn the new anti-choice HHS rules that the lame-duck Bush administration wants to push through by December 20th. And I’m thankful for a Secretary of State who has been a champion of women’s rights.

I am thankful for pro-choice religious leaders who recognize that the best way to reduce abortions is to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

But although there’s a lot to be thankful for this year, yesterday was not so much a day of thankfulness but a day to recognize that we’re a long way from a world of sexual and reproductive health. Some World AIDS Day facts from Racewire:

• Around 95 percent of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing nations.

• More people than ever before are living with HIV worldwide and new infections continue. According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 33.2 million people living with HIV, including 2.5 million children.

• During 2007 some 2.5 million people became newly infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.

• In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report estimating 56,300 new HIV infections in the U.S. in 2006 – much higher than the previous annual estimates of 40,000 new infections.

• Black Americans were seven times more likely than whites to become newly infected with HIV, according to the report, and “blacks are more heavily and disproportionately affected by HIV than any other racial/ethnic group in the U.S.” Blacks are one in eight Americans, but approximately half the people living with HIV in the U.S., according to the CDC.

• AIDS remains the leading cause of death among black women between 25-34 years and the second leading cause of death in black men between 35-44 years. Black women in the U.S. were 23 times more likely than white women to be diagnosed with AIDS in 2005, according to the CDC.

We have an incoming administration that’s made a lot of promises regarding health care in general and reproductive health specifically, and there’s great potential for better AIDS prevention policies both at home and abroad. With the economic woes facing the country, however, some have predicted that other concerns will take a back seat to keeping key industries afloat and creating jobs. If that’s the case, we’re going to have to work hard to remind our leaders that economic troubles are no excuse for the continued marginalization of the nation’s and world’s most vulnerable populations–and that reproductive health is a human right.