2009 is here, and I think many of us are grateful to say goodbye to the old year–a year of economic catastrophe and, for those supporting progressive causes, a frustrating final hurrah of a lame duck administration inimical to many areas of human rights, including reproductive rights. As LSRJ members prepare to start school again, our eyes turn unavoidably towards January 20th–the day we hope to see a new era of reproductive justice allies in the U.S. executive branch. With Democratic Senator Tom Daschle as the new Cabinet head of Health and Human Services, the Obama administration’s most pressing task in the reproductive health department will be to repeal the damaging new regulations promulgated by the outgoing regime that give a “right of conscience” allowing providers to refuse health services. We’ll be watching closely to see whether our new leaders make this important repair job a priority.

Here’s a short round-up of links for this first week of January:

– The Vatican, continuing to maintain their hard-line position against reproductive freedom, has adopted an environmental argument against the use of contraceptives. While feminizing hormones in the water supply is certainly a serious health concern, the Catholic Church’s ingenuous statement that the pollution derives chiefly from birth control ignores a much more significant, better established source of synthetic estrogen: industrial pollution, particularly from pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and plastics. It’s clear that the Church’s official position has less to do with genuine concern for the environment than with a continued effort to undermine women’s rights and health.

– Logan Kelly of RH Reality Check outlines the success of Death with Dignity campaigns, pointing out the similarity of right to death laws to abortion rights:

It’s fall of 2008, and a ballot measure is up for popular vote in Washington state. Supporters say the measure would expand choice and individual autonomy, while opponents warn voters to “protect the vulnerable.” Catholic dioceses across the country pour money into the opposition campaign, and the measure’s supporters warn of the encroaching power of one religious group to mandate morals for all. Then the opposition ramps up fears that an individual would not even need to notify their spouse to undergo a medical procedure. Sounds like a typical abortion campaign, right? In fact, this ballot measure legalized aid in dying in Washington state.

– An article in the New York Times focuses on the use of misoprostol and other non-medical methods of abortion among the urban Dominican-Latina community. Because of cultural stigma against abortion, many women choose less safe alternatives rather than risk being seen entering a clinic–but may risk their own health in the process.

– To end today’s blog entry on a positive note, RH Reality Check lists 2008′s Top Ten Wins for Women’s Health, including triumphs for reproductive rights both here in the US and abroad. 2008 was not without its bright spots–and I for one am looking forward to an even brighter year for reproductive justice in 2009.

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.

This is Amanda guest-blogging again. . . This week, a new Virginia drug store is opening that refuses as a matter of faith to sell contraceptives of any kind, even if a person has a prescription. According to the Washington Times, the Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy (DMC) is one of the country’s few “pro-life pharmacies” that refuse to dispense contraceptives on moral and health grounds, arguing that they cause abortions, lead to promiscuity or endanger a woman’s health. This has already been discussed by other feminist blogs, but I wanted to take issue with one aspect in particular of this story.

I’m mostly troubled by the statement, written by Associated Press writer Matthew Bakarat, that “[DMC] only sells items that are health-related, including vitamins, skin care products and over-the-counter medications.” It’s one thing for DMC executive director Robert Laird to claim that “[b]irth control is not health care.”. Laird is the executive director of a self-proclaimed pro-life and faith-filled pharmacy with a rightly-formed conscience—I don’t expect to agree with him on the uses of contraception (or much else, for that matter). And of course, progressive consumers in the area should boycott DMC Pharmacy and other so-called “pro-life” pharmacies. But when the mainstream media is actually believing and repeating this radical right-wing lie that contraception is not an essential part of health care—that contraception isn’t “health-related,” as Bakarat said—we need to call them out on it.

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, contraception is basic, preventive health care and should be readily available and treated the same as prophylactic therapies for other medical conditions. To casually place contraception in the “non-health related” column opposite “vitamins, skin care products and over-the-counter medications” devalues its importance for consumers to make decisions about their own bodies, health, safety, and self-determination.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, virtually all women (98%) aged 15–44 who have ever had intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method; among the 42 million fertile, sexually active women who do not want to become pregnant, 89% are practicing contraception.. We know—and the numbers reflect—that access to choices about contraception is an essential component to overall health and well-being. But by parroting DMC’s definition of “health-related,” the writer reflected back to readers the notion that contraception is something other than what it is—something perhaps superfluous or even risky—from the position of an ostensibly objective reporter. This conveys a dangerous and untrue message to readers; after all, what could be more essential to one’s health than the decision to start (or delay starting) a family?

This is Amanda here, blogging at the end of my second full week as a staff member in the national office! I’m so excited and honored to be LSRJ’s first-ever Fellow, and I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself and discuss a troubling and misleading aspect of the last presidential debate. On Wednesday, Senator John McCain referred to the “pro-abortion movement” twice, saying in one instance that the “extreme pro-abortion position” is to stretch the “health” (complete with air-quotes!) of the mother to “mean almost anything.”

After the debate ended I found myself wondering, what is this so-called “pro-abortion movement”? Who are its leaders? What are their goals? Where is the website? Does this movement share any values or ideals with the movement I identify with, the reproductive justice movement? I asked my friends, coworkers, and colleagues in the movement. But strangely, no one had any names of organizations to look up, contacts to call, or websites to visit.

Of course, I’m being facetious. There is no pro-abortion movement. The movement that I am a part of “envisons the complete physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of women and girls.” LSRJ believes that reproductive justice will be achieved when all people and communities have access to the information, resources, and support they need to attain sexual and reproductive self-determination. Reproductive justice extends beyond the false pro-life/pro-choice dichotomy that has permeated the culture wars surrounding the debate about reproductive health services. As such, reproductive justice is a movement that does not consider abortion to be “the issue” of prime importance, but also does not believe it is constructive to send a message that it is “always a tragic situation,” as Senator Obama lamented in the last debate. Reproductive justice demands that voices that have historically been stifled be heard; that both adults and minors have the information and resources they need to achieve reproductive and bodily autonomy; that prisoners have access to adequate reproductive health services and an opportunity to keep their families intact. That’s why reproductive justice is just as much about challenging the injustices in Ledbetter as it is about challenging the injustices in Carhart. After all, a worker’s ability to succeed in the workplace is intimately linked to his or her ability to care for their family—and reproductive justice cannot be achieved unless and until all people are treated equally in the workplace, and courts enforce civil rights laws enacted to protect them from illegal pay discrimination.

Senator McCain attempted to rename a movement by calling it something it’s not. Our movement will not stand for this artificial and misleading invention. Our movement knows that women’s “health” does not belong in air quotes, and that abortion is not the defining aspect of achieving reproductive justice. I am eager to work with LSRJ and our allies in the next year to continue to challenge falsehoods like these while building additional capacity, vision, and leadership in the reproductive justice movement.

On the campaign trail this weekend, Senator Obama touched on what is perhaps the most explosive question in an already-explosive issue:  whether abortion is ever a good thing.  Here’s what he said, addressing his support from many to the right of political center:

“It may be that those who have opposed abortion get a sense that I’m listening to them and respect their position even though where we finally come down may be different,” he told reporters at a news conference.

“The mistake that pro-choice forces have sometimes made in the past, and this is a generalization so it has not always been the case, has been to not acknowledge the wrenching moral issues involved in it,” he said.

“Most Americans recognize that what we want to do is avoid, or help people avoid, having to make this difficult choice. That nobody is pro-abortion, abortion is never a good thing.” 

I’d agree that the abortion rights movement has gotten itself in trouble sometimes by refusing to acknowledge the complexities of a woman’s decision to terminate a pregnancy. But, really, Senator Obama, has the other side done that complexity thing any better? And do we gain anything by starting to accept and repeat their talking points? I think not.  What’s more, saying — as many on the anti-choice side of things do — that abortion is never a good thing obscures the myriad reasons that women get abortions. Yes, abortion is often a fraught decision for women. But it is often a good decision — and the availability of abortion is a good thing.  It’s a good thing for the already-living children of a woman who decides to get an abortion because she is struggling financially and wants to be sure that she can still put food on the table for her kids. Legal and accessible abortion is a good thing for the college student who decides to get an abortion because knows that she will not be able to finish her coursework and maintain her work-study job if she is pregnant or parenting — or for the high school student facing the same dilemma and having the same thoughts.  Legal abortion is a good thing for the professional woman who — in large part because of the societal sexism that we have not yet figured out how to escape — accidentally becomes pregnant and feels that she has to choose the career she has always dreamed of or the child she wants some day but not right now.  And abortion may be a good thing for a couple who are facing a long and painful labor to deliver an unviable child.  Abortion is certainly complicated for many, many people. But that doesn’t mean it’s never a good thing. Obama betrayed his convictions by speaking that way on the trail today. (via zuzu).