Help Support Women's Access to Health Care!

This language comes directly from the Planned Parenthood webiste, as they do a great job at explaining the issue and the urgency of it!

Right now, the Republican leadership on the Senate Finance Committee is demanding health care reform language that will take away access to women's comprehensive reproductive health services. Our leaders should be focused on expanding health care coverage, not talking about taking benefits away from women.

The proposed language demanded will result in a drastic change to the benefits that many of us have now; and, of course, the hundreds of thousands of women who are not covered now will still be left out in the cold.

If you live in any of the following states: AZ, AR, DE, FL, ID, IA, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MT, NV, NJ, NM, NY, ND, OR, TX, UT, WA, WV, WY, contact the Senate Finance Committee here.

If you don't live in one of those states, you can sign Planned Parenthood's Health Care Reform Petition and receive reproductive health care updates in your state here.

This is such an important issue. Even right now women's access to reproductive health care is severely limited and Republicans in the Senate Finance Committee want to limit our access even more. We cannot let this happen!!

Abortion is a Blessing

This isn't the common belief held by many people, including some feminists. I'll admit that I have occassionally used an argument along the lines of "yes, aboriton is a tragedy, but it is the lesser of two evils." I have used this argument to get anti-choicers to recognize a woman's right to choose and that sometimes it is the better option, even if it is "evil." What I was not aware of when I was making this kind of argument was that this argument might actually be deterring the pro-choice movement.

At the 2009 National NOW Conference, I heard Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale talk about reproductive rights as an Episcopal priest. She says that "abortion is a blessing," never a tragedy. What is a tragedy, according to Ragsdale, is the loss of hopes and dreams. Whether an unplanned pregnancy is a resule of rape or just faulty birth control, abortion is blessing to that woman in need. Unplanned pregnancies can severely disrupt the hopes and dreams of women and abortions help to restore these. And when women want children and have a planned pregnancy, but health issues require her to get a late-term abortion to save her life, the loss of the hopes and dreams of having a child is the real tragedy. Not the abortion. Never the abortion.

When we, as feminists, make concessions that abortion is a tragedy but the lesser of two evils, we lose our footing and this will eventually lead to loosing the pro-choice battle. We are still fighting to uphold Roe v. Wade. Abortion providers are being murdered. This is a pro-choice battle. If we say that abortion is a tragedy, anti-choicers can use the argument that even pro-choice feminists believe that abortion is evil so it should be illegal.

As feminists, we need to stand our ground that abortion is a blessing for women who face the fear and stress of an unplanned pregnancy. We need to continue to defend the ruling of Roe v. Wade. We need to support our local or state abortion providers. We need to work for the reproductive rights of all women around the country and around the world.

The speech that Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale gave at the 2009 National NOW Conference was really inspiring and eye-opening. I am so used to hearing the religious argument that abortion is murder, women shouldn't use birth control, and that LGBTQ people are less than human. But it was amazing to hear a pro-choice, reproductive and LGBTQ rights advocate who was a religious person, not to mention an Episcopal prient. Ragsdale was recently elected as the second woman and first openly lesbian or gay president and deal of Episcopal Divinity School. Ragsdale will be responsible for teaching and training a new generation of priests which will make strides (not steps) toward the religious support of reproductive and LGBTQ rights.

Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale's selected sermons
EDS information on Ragsdale

What I Did This Weekend

This past weekend (June 19-21) I attended the National NOW Conference in Indianapolis, IN. It was an amazing conference filled with intelligent and passionate women. I felt right at home in the room of over 400 fellow feminists. In case any of you are interested, this is what I was up to there. I went to four workshops and saw some brilliant speakers.

The first workshop I attended was "Don't Be a Bystander: Own Your Sexual Health." This workshop covered various resources that are available about reproductive and sexual health led by a woman from SisterSong and two women from the National Library of Medicine.. I'm amazed at all of the valuable information that is out there and the work that is being done by organizations to make the information even better. Here are some of the websites that I especially liked:
Mapping Our Rights - Developed by SisterSong, this website has tons on information of the laws and policies in each state that relate to reproductive rights. Right now, it doesn't have everything, but it is still really comprehensive and you can request that they add information.
Medline Plus - Put out by the National Library of Medicine, this is a comprehensive health website, but has some great sections of Teen Sexual Health, Reproductive Health, Women's Sexual Health, etc.
Sex Etc. - a webiste geared toward LGBT teens who are questioning their sexual identity.
Women's Health - this website is pretty much what the name says, but it has some great info!

The next workshop I went to was "Square Butts, Date Rape, and Wicked Witches: Confronting Dangerous Media Messages." This was about the dangerous effect that the media has on women, from the self-esteem of girls and women to how men view women. This was an amazing workshop that was really comprehensive about the different types of advertising strageties and how the media portrays women. It also talked about things you can do to fight back. You can check out NOW's Media Hall of Shame. If you see an advertisement or news report that offends you, contact the company. If you decide to boycott a company based on their advertising campaign, make sure you let them know why. So many offensive ads have been taken out of magazines, off TV and down from billboards because people have written to the companies because of offensive material.

On Saturday, I went to "Feminist Blogging: Connecting Women Around the World." This workshop was pretty straight forward, but gave some valuable information on how to get started, what to post, and how to manage a blog.

Finally, I went to "Feminist Activism on Global Issues: CEDAW, Trafficking, Violence, Poverty, and Women's Health." This was such a jam-packed workshop and I arrived late because some other speakers ran over. But it was so comprehensive. The main focus was human and sex trafficking. You may not think that it's that big of a problem, but oh yes it is. It was kind of overwhelming to sit there and listen to all these horrible things that happen not only to women in other countries, but to women right here in the United States. The biggest problem in working against the trafficking of women is that there are no services for the women after they escape from their traffickers. I don't know what else to say because there was just so much information and it was so overwhelming.

The speakers at the conference included Lulu Flores, president of the National Women's Political Caucus; Donna Smith, health care advocate who was featured in Sicko; Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed and activist for women's and working class rights; Hon. Jennifer Brunner, first female Sec. of State of Ohio and Senate candidate to be the first female senator from Ohio; Hon. Gwen Moore, representative from Wisconsin; Dr. Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennet College for Women; and Rev. Dr. Katherine Ragsdale, the first openly lesbian or gay president and dean of the Episcopal Divinity School.

Overall, amazing conference, amazing people, amazing time!