Last week, President Bush named the recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. There are some good ones among them — Harper Lee, the author of To Kill a Mockingbird; and Benjamin Hicks, a civil rights pioneer. But there’s one real sleeper in there (warning: don’t have anything in your mouth while you read this or you may spit it out): Henry Hyde. Yes, he of the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal medicaid funds for abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or if the woman’s life is threatened.  The same Hyde Amendment that places an enormous obstacle in the way of poor women seeking abortions in this country, and that discriminates against poor women (though the Supreme Court has said otherwise) in that federal medicaid funds cover other reproductive healthcare expenses for men and women. The same Hyde Amendment that a coalition of reproductive justice groups is currently fighting to repeal.

And for this, he gets the medal of freedom, complete with this citation from the White House:

Henry J. Hyde has served America with distinction. During his career in the House of Representatives, he was a powerful defender of life and a leading advocate for a strong national defense and for freedom around the world.

Ann at Feministing takes the words right out of my mouth:

 Because nothing says “freedom” like severely curtailing the reproductive rights of low-income women.

Hyde’s “defense of life” has meant that many women have been forced to carry pregnancies to term when they would have preferred to abort, often because they feel it’s what’s in the best interests of the child or children they already have. Or they have had to choose between buying food or paying the electric bill and paying for their abortion. Or they have been forced to consider dropping out of school to take care of a child when they would really rather graduate.

The good news is that some states provide public funding for abortions out of their own coffers. These states recognize that access to safe and legal abortion is a necessary part of a woman’s reproductive health, and of her life outside her reproduction. The bad news is that the President (et al.) think that denying this access warrants an award. And not just any award, but one that carries the name “freedom.” It would be funny if it weren’t real.

A long running debate about diversifying “feminism” and about choice vs. reproductive justice has popped up again, this time in a guest post on Feministe by La Lubu, and in some of the reactions to her post.

La Lubu takes on a lot of the tired strains of our mothers’ feminism:  the focus on middle-class white women, the centering of abortion, the centrality of gatekeeping (who are the “real” feminists?.  She writes:

Although I identify as feminist, there are times when I feel alienated from feminism—or perhaps I should say, some of the narratives of dominant feminism (even when those expressions don’t necessarily come from the mainstream organizations, spokespeople, or media that traditionally represent feminism). I feel like the Outsider in a movement that should feel like home. My view is that our expressions of feminism (and everything else) is intimately connected to our identities; that it is impossible to separate those various facets of identity from one another—that those parts of ourselves are indelibly integrated into a whole; that feminism is necessary for us and the world; and that blogs can be an effective way to parse out our conflicts with one another and bridge the gaps in understanding in order that feminism remain a viable movement for positive change. The key word in that last sentence being “can.”

She identifies as forces that make her feel marginal in feminism the exclusive dominant feminist narratives (with the notable exception of Sojourner Truth);  a dismissiveness of the struggles of mothers (a byproduct of the focus on abortion); and an ignored classism. These and more.

La Lubu is right to identify these issues as part of what this generation of feminists inherited.  But what she fails to address is the push right now among feminists and activists to address some of these problems (the work’s not done — only starting, but it’s worth noting nonetheless). A key area where this is happening is in the rhetoric shift that is in evidence in the transformation of Law Students for Choice to Law Students for Reproductive Justice.  The name change, and the refocusing throughout the abortion rights movement, was brought about by a recognition of the problems that La Lubu points out — the things that have made so many people feel distant from the dominant feminist and abortion rights (pro-choice) narratives. Reproductive justice, as I discussed in my first post here, recognizes that we can’t fight for abortion rights in a vacuum. Abortion rights are meaningless if they are not accessible to everyone (young, old, immigrant, citizen, rich, poor). And they’re meaningless if not contextualized in a society more broadly respectful of women’s reproductive lives and that provides health care, child care, real family leave, real workplace protections for people of all genders and gender identities.   But not everyone is convinced.  For some, even those who support these initiatives, the language of RJ doesn’t seem like the right choice (bad pun intended).  Cara, writing at The Curvature, believes that the more expansive ideals of reproductive justice can be folded into the notion of “choice.” Though she identifies that there are problems with using the word “choice,” she writes:

Reproductive choice is also about the choice to give birth and raise a child. It is about the choice to have or not have children, the choice to have them when they are wanted, the choice to use birth control. I think that the media certainly dos seize upon the concept of “pro-choice” as “pro-abortion” and as being mainly concerned with abortion. But that doesn’t make it true.

I’m not so sure. Cara’s definition (read more of her post for an expanded discussion) still keeps a laser focus on childbearing. Choice as the meaningful opportunity to bear or not bear children is vitally important. But it’s not enough. We need more. We need the resources not only to make informed and free decisions about pregnancies, but also to provide for the children we do bring into this world, and for ourselves. That means education, jobs, environmental policy, and healthcare. And probably, much more.

President Bush announced today his choice to head the Federal Government’s Family Planning Program:  Susan Orr. Orr, whom Bush called “very qualified” turns out to be not at all qualified for this job. Here’s why:  she vehemently opposes contraception. That’s right. The woman who will be helping shape federal policy about access to contraception doesn’t think contraception is a good idea. She thinks the Global Gag Rule is fine and dandy and that birth control is “not a medical necessity.” She even authored a charming document called “Real Women Stay Married.” And she thinks that Plan B is a “grave threat to women’s health.” Jill says it sounds like a headline from the Onion. Only it’s real life. It’s headspinning.

But it’s not surprising. Why not? Bush’s previous choice for this post was Dr. Eric Keroack, the medical director of A Woman’s Concern (a “crisis pregnancy center”), who has been intimately involved with Leslee Unruh’s Abstinence Clearinghouse and who pushes the scientifically dubious claim that women (note: only women) become unable to form loving relationships if they have sex extra- or pre-maritally because of supposed changes in brain chemistry. Again - no science here.

I’ll chalk this one up to another embarrassingly bad Bush appointee. And the Bush administration knows it. Why else would they announce her appointment on the same day as the Mukasey hearings?

This news item might be the least surprising of the day, but it’s still worth noting.

A Guttmacher Institute report issued today shows that abortions are no less common in countries where the procedure is illegal than in countries where it’s legally sanctioned. No surprise there. Those of us who follow this issue know that women will get abortions whether abortion is legal or not. We saw it in the U.S. before Roe, and we see it now in many countries around the world where abortion remains illegal or inaccessible.*
But illegal abortion is dangerous for women’s health.

Though abortion is very safe when performed in a clean facility by a medical professional, illegal abortions account for 13% of the world’s maternal mortality (see chart). This is especially worrisome given that 97% of unsafe abortions took place in poor countries, where medical care to treat the results of an unsafe abortion is severely lacking. And it affects the vast majority of women in the world, with 9 out of 10 women worldwide seeking abortions before their 45th birthdays.

Today’s report provides yet more proof that if we are really “pro-life,” we must support reproductive freedom and legal abortion. Because nothing is less supportive of life than a policy that ensures that women will die because they cannot obtain safe and clean health care when they need it and want it.

—

* Which is not to say that abortion is accessible in the U.S. Only 13% of American counties have an abortion provider, and several states have laws further restricting the availability of abortion for all women, but especially minors and poor women. But abortion is legal in the U.S.

There was a lot of (figurative) ink spilled this past summer over the Judd Apatow film Knocked Up, and about how the film did and, mostly, did not deal with the question of whether or not the protagonist, a twenty-something woman, pregnant after a drunken one night stand, will have an abortion. The film was at root a comedy, and it muted political concerns by either mocking the righteousness of the abortion debate or ignoring it. It just depended on your perspective.

So it’ll be interesting to see what the reaction is to two new films that shine a spotlight on abortion. The first, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, doesn’t address abortion in the American political context, but rather tells the story of a Romanian woman living under Ceausescu’s communist regime who tries to seek out an abortion (then illegal). The film unblinkingly portrays her search and struggle, and explores the  bribes, secrecy, covert meetings and the looming possibility of jail that women seeking abortions in communist Romania had to face. The film has been very well received, even winning the Palme D’or at the Cannes film festival this year.

The second film deals directly with abortion in American politics.  Tony Kaye’s Lake of Fire is a 2.5 hour documentary (all in black and white) about abortion in the U.S. In the film, reviewed in today’s NY Times and premiering at the New York Film Festival this week, Kaye interviews  political activists, religious activists, and people whose lives have otherwise been affected by abortion (both access to it and the desire to stop that access). But this is no normal talking-head documentary. Kaye also films and screens, without commentary, two (perhaps more?) abortion procedures as they take place. One of them occurs at 20 weeks, and is carried out by non-intact dilation and extraction, the one late term procedure still legal after the Supreme Court’s decision in Gonzales v. Carhart last term. But, as NY Times critic Manhola Dargis points out, Kaye never tells the viewer (1) at what stage in pregnancy the abortion is taking place, or (2) how infrequently this procedure is actually used. What’s more, according to Dargis’s review, the film, though very obviously about an issue most directly affecting women, features very few women on screen. Dargis writes:

The fight, of course, is over what that something is — an embryo, a baby, God’s creation, a blob of cells — and who has dominion over it and the fully formed human being carrying that something inside her body.

I wish there were more of those fully formed human beings in “Lake of Fire,” which has an awful lot of men talking about what women should and should not do with their bodies. There are women here, to be sure, though it may be instructive that one of the most memorable female voices belongs to an unreliable witness who talks about seeing “babies” stacked in an abortion-clinic freezer. Mr. Kaye follows this startling testimonial with otherworldly and unidentified images of intact late-term fetuses or babies or maybe even dolls. Because I couldn’t tell what I was looking at, I asked the film’s distributor. According to the company, these images had been given to Mr. Kaye by members of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Kaye also relied on anti-abortion groups for footage that he includes, again without comment, in the film. So, despite a glowing review from a family member whose opinion and politics I trust, I’m skeptical about Kaye’s film (though curious to see both Lake of Fire and 4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days). And I’m starting to think that maybe Judd Apatow got it right in mocking Americans’ inability to actually talk about abortion while not actually broaching the topic himself.

Earlier this week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on a case out of Missouri about the right of pregnant women who are incarcerated to be transported to secure an abortion.  Here’s some background on the case, via Rachel Roth at RH Reality Check:

The case arose when a young woman beginning a four-year sentence in Missouri was told she could not have an abortion. This represented a change in policy for the prison; in the past, women who could come up with the money were taken to a clinic for abortion care. Then in 2005, with a new anti-choice governor in office, the prison administration and the Department of Corrections reversed course, adopting a policy that categorically denies women access to abortion.

After weeks of being rebuffed by prison officials, “Jane Roe” wrote to the ACLU and eventually sued the prison. The court’s decision in her favor was straightforward, because the Supreme Court has been very clear that while states can enact policies to make getting an abortion more difficult, they cannot ban abortion altogether, as the Missouri prison had done. The Supreme Court has also made it clear that people do not automatically lose all of their constitutional rights when they cross the prison threshold. Jails and prisons must have a legitimate, prison-related reason for restricting such rights, and forcing women to bear children does not further any legitimate goal related to prison administration or crime control. Calling the decision an offense to its values, the Missouri government has asked the court of appeals to reinstate its unconstitutional policy.

It’s a funny thing when a state argues that a woman should lose her constitutionally protected right to abortion when she is incarcerated. While it’s true that people who are in jail in the U.S. do lose many rights that are ancillary to liberty, they retain the rights guaranteed them by the Constitution. This is clear in the realms of the First Amendment and the Eighth Amendment, for example (though the Supreme Court yesterday declined t0 hear a case about the censorship of outgoing inmate mail). While there are sometimes legit penological considerations that allow the government to restrict a constitutional right more than might be possible for the general public, that logic doesn’t fly here:  the state prison system regularly transports women over three hours away for a cosmetology exam.  This case is not about making the prison system run more smoothly; it’s about picking on the most vulnerable women in society in an attempt to further restrict the abortion rights of all.  Let’s hope the Eighth Circuit upholds the lower court’s decision and reminds the states that people who are incarcerated retain all of the constitutional rights they had before entering prison, including those related to their reproductive health.

Last year, reproductive justice activists at Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) were informed that the school (which is Jesuit) would not fund internships at abortion rights advocacy organizations…after those students had already helped raise money to fund students’ summer placements. LSRJ flew into action, organizing protests and petitions. And their work paid off last week when the GULC administration reversed its policy.

From Georgetown Law student and LSRJ chapter head Rachel Spitzer:

On September 7, Dean Alexander Aleinikoff of Georgetown University Law Center (GULC) announced a new funding program guaranteeing summer stipends for all students who wish to participate in summer public interest internships, regardless of the issues on which their internships focus. This new program came in direct response to outcry across the campus last spring when GULC administrators refused to fund internships focused on reproductive rights. Student leaders, including the leadership of the Georgetown chapter of Law Students for Choice, worked with the administration for months, and were elated when the new program was announced. “This tremendous victory shows what we can accomplish when we work together with alumni, supportive student organizations, and faculty, and refuse to accept anything less than equal treatment,” said Joy Welan, president of LSFC at Georgetown in 2006-2007 [ed. note: and current LSRJ board member]. The new program is a major improvement because reproductive justice internships will get funded. In addition, the policy of guaranteed funding reduces barriers for all students who want to pursue public interest internships. The efforts of Georgetown LSFC and other supporters of educational freedom and reproductive rights have made it possible for future students to pursue public interest internships without subject-based discrimination.

The proof is in the pudding: on-campus advocacy can get things done. And fast.

There are over 1.1 billion Catholics in the world. The lion’s share of those are in South and Central America, where religious observance is high, abortion is often illegal, and rates of birth control use are low. And the Pope isn’t to happy about that. The New York Times reported the other day that the Pope, in a visit to Vienna, called on politicians to help reverse declining birthrates there and in other European countries:

Benedict stressed demographics as he repeated, in a strong multifront attack, the Vatican’s long-held opposition to abortion.

“I appeal, then, to political leaders not to allow children to be considered as a form of illness,” he said in his native German to a gathering of diplomats. “I say this out of concern for humanity. But that is only one side of this disturbing problem.

“The other is the need to do everything possible to make European countries once again open to welcoming children,” he added, in this nation with a low birthrate. “Encourage young married couples to establish new families and to become mothers and fathers! You will not only assist them, but you will benefit society as a whole.”

He further said that children should not “be considered a form of illness.” We can all recognize that birthrates in Europe are declining. Italy’s birthrate is at an all-time low. And religious observance is on the wane in countries that have long been among the most staunchly Catholic in the world. The Pope is right to say that Catholicism “profoundly shaped the [European] continent.”

But what makes me uncomfortable is what he said next: that Europe’s embracing of legalized abortion and rejection of Catholic teachings regarding birth control could threaten the continent’s existence, leaving a world where Catholicism predominates not in traditionally white European countries but in Latin American countries that are devout in the way Europe used to be.

While praying in the shadows of Vienna’s holocaust memorial, the Pope called out abortion as the threat to European humanity. Might that have been a good moment to talk instead about the horrors of genocide, and perhaps to bring up Rwanda or Darfur? Or to highlight the importance of universal healthcare in healing the ill and ensuring a society that respects its citizens? Seems to me like a real missed opportunity.

(h/t Sheila)