reproductive rights

Sorry I haven't posted for the longest time, and I'm definitely going to make up for it. For instance, from a recent Newsweek article about pregnant surrogates:

"many conservative Christians decry the practice as tampering with the miracle of life, while far-left feminists liken gestational carriers to prostitutes who degrade themselves by renting out their bodies."

What? I have literally never heard that once in my years (admittedly few, but whatever) as a feminist. Of course, there were no sources to accompany this bold statement. On examining the statement, I found that the only source to really condemn the practice was an old edition of OBOS. And we all know that the Boston's Women Health Book Collective, while a group that I am immensely grateful for and respect deeply, certainly does not speak for all feminists.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/06pdf/05-380.pdf

Today the Supreme Court of the US in a 5-4 ruling upheld the ban on partial birth abortion, despite the lack of a provision that allowed for the life of the mother to override the ban. It's being greeted by anger or elation, depending on your affiliation, and is seen as another step on the slippery slope of abortion rights in the United States.

What do you all think about it? (If you don't want to read the whole thing, the dissent at the bottom by Ginsberg is definitely worth reading.)

Thanks to Al Gore's little documentary An Inconvenient Truth it seems like everyone is changing their lives to help save the environment and reduce their impact on this planet.

So what could be less expensive then converting your car to run on veggie oil, easier then buying incandescent bulbs and more effective then switching over to solar energy?

Being pro-choice.

As shown in the Al Gore's film, as the population has increased, so has CO2 emissions. Our exponential population growth has caused other problems besides global warming. It's created global conflict over resources such a oil. It's forced us to build homes and to farm on wetlands. Population growth has caused parts of the rain forest to be destroyed to make room for agriculture. Human kind has re-shaped the landscape of earth looking for resources that we wouldn't need in such quantities if we simply had a smaller population.

I was just mentioning today that while it is, absolutely, positively vital to talk about backalley abortions, to talk about what abortion was like before Roe vs. Wade (and what it still is like in areas where abortion is illegal or inaccessible), it's equally important to talk about what choice as a whole was like and still IS like, even with the help of Roe and other supports. I think many often forget or simply don't know the combined impact Roe vs. Wade,Title X and other feminist initiatives had when it came to reproductive choice no matter the choice a woman made. More accurately, no matter what a woman did or what was done TO her when she became pregnant before she had any sort of choice.

I grew up going to a public school in a middle class area. But I also grew up surrounded by poverty. In some areas where I grew up, houses were falling down, schools were falling down. Even though our minimum wage was higher then in other states, alot of people were poor and alot of people didn't have jobs. I grew up going to school with people who were really poor; people who were on welfare, people on food stamps, people who struggled through the day. I wasn't living in poverty, but I wasn't middle class either.

I was told, if I didn't want to live the way I was living, the way I was raised, I needed to work. If I just worked hard, I could get into college. If I got into college I could either marry someone with money or get a good paying, secure job. I was told I too could enjoy the fine things of life; cars, houses, trips, whatever I wanted if I only worked hard.

The morning after pill is now legal in the U.S. for over-the counter use, without a prescription, for those over 18.
But what does that really mean to you?

Following is an in-depth question and answer page about the decision and how it will be applied for all women, about Plan B, and about pharmacist refusals and how to manage them. Please circulate this information and/or link it as widely as possible.

The FDA press release from the day of the decision stated...

The decision to make Plan B OTC came the day that classes started at my university, so it took until this week for the news to make our mainstream and the campus paper to make some statement. The first full week of the paper's new daily run was been full of stries relevant to student life, and the front page feature of Plan B's new status was a breakthrough on a paper whose editor is known for his conservativeness.

The opening quote from the doctor in charge of our on-campus women's care clinic stated "It's safe enough to put it in vending machines." More than the issues that Plan B will hopefully counter, the emphasis was on the new availability and what it meant to the college community. The article leaned into an opinion that we all could be proud of, but the news article was only the beginning.

Its official, the FDA has approved Plan B for sale over the counter. However, unlike some other over the counter medications, plan B will be kept behind the counter under lock and key. Only women over the age of 18, with state issued IDs will be able to purchase the drug. Women under the age of 18 will be able to access the drug, but only with a prescription from their doctor.

The reasons why women under the age of 18 cannot get Plan B, according to the director of the FDA, without a prescription are confusing to say the least. He claims that although their own studies showed the drug was safe for women of all ages, they believed women under the age of 18 would not be able to follow the directions for use of the drug. He continued to attempt to back that opinion up, by saying that we have lots of laws which exclude teens from adult activities. I find this interesting coming from the director of the FDA. Is he unaware that doctors frequently give medications tested only on adults to teens and pre-teens? Is he unaware that physically a woman IS an adult by the time she reaches her teens?

We, as AGA bloggers and by virtue of our age, have never lived in a country without Griswold and the right to access to birth control. We've never lived without Roe and the right to choose abortion. And it's easy to forget that not so very long ago these rights were greatly restricted or withheld altogether. We must remember the work of our foremothers; and the times when we forget, there is one group of women who never fail to remind me.

Before the Feminist Majority Foundation, Before NARAL Pro-Choice America, before NOW--

Heather Booth made her first referral.

Welcome, welcome to the All Girl Army. Looking for some inspiration quotes, I once came across a Latin proverb: "A woman for a general, and the soldiers will be women." How a propos, huh.

I admit that I never meant to be a feminist. It's one of those things where you're working on a cause and you stop and look around--only to find that you've worked yourself right into something entirely new.

As you can find in my user profile, I started into women's issues during the Alito confirmation hearings, but the truth is that it starts with the fact that I'm a sucker for nineteenth century literature and finally got a professor willing to push the canon boundaries enought to get us reading Fanny Ferne and Louisa May Alcott's lesser known social satire. It's easy to forget that women have been writing as long and as well as men have. But I digress.