Posts tagged reproductive rights.

— Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (via think-progress)

thecurvature:

I feel like I am living in a speculative fiction nightmare. I snap the light by the door off and on to see if that wakes me up. I start to wonder if I’m floating in a tank somewhere and this is all being fed into my head. If I selected this from a library of entertainment options before entering hibernation mode. (Why would I have done that?) Maybe I’m actually hurtling through space, getting ready to found a colony on a distant world, waiting for landfall and the activation of the wakeup sequence.

Really excellent piece.

nvrcomfortable:

If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d F-ck a Senator” - Oklahoma Senator Judy Eason McIntyre #trustwomen

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The ‘Safe, Legal, Rare’ Illusion - NYTimes.com

YES. 

(via golden-notebook)

In the United States a massive legislative campaign against abortion rights is taking its toll on a woman’s right to choose. ‘What Every Woman Should Know’ is a report by Susie Cagle on the war that’s being waged against women’s health in the United States. 

stfuhypocrisy:

“The Virginia Board of Health passed the most severe abortion clinic regulations in the nation on Thursday, which health advocates say could effectively close down all 22 abortion providers in the state. The regulations, commissioned by the state legislature and written by the Virginia Department of Health, are largely unrelated to patient health and safety. They would treat abortion clinics as if they are hospitals if the clinics provide five or more first-trimester abortions a month and would enforce architectural design standards that will be almost impossible for most clinics to meet. For instance, a clinic must have 5-foot-wide hallways, 8-foot-wide areas outside of procedure rooms, specific numbers of toilets and types of sinks and all of the latest requirements for air circulation flow and electrical wiring. Each clinic must also have a parking spot for every bed, despite the fact that first-trimester abortions don’t require an overnight stay. Further, Department of Health employees will be allowed to enter an abortion facility at any time without notice or identification.”

— Virginia Board Of Health Passes Strictest Abortion Clinic Regulations In The Nation (via becauseiamawoman)

“Let me tell you some things. I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world. First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it? Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that? End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either? You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count? And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.) In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born! Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage? “Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.”

— STFU, Conservatives: When I say I’m pro-life…

“Many White reproductive activists cannot relate to the experiences of Black women. They have never had to fight for the right to be mothers, or fight for the right to keep their children off the auction block. Unless the reproduction of a woman of colour is directly sanctioned by Whiteness, it is deemed an irresponsible act. Such language continues to occur in discussions of so-called third world Brown and Black women. Mommy continues to be defined as White, middle/upper class, able bodied, straight, soccer mom in a mini van. Undocumented workers are routinely accused of having anchor babies to secure citizenship, but when this is played out in the media, they most certainly aren’t referring to the undocumented workers from countries that are considered White. They mean the dangerous Brown and Black wombs reproducing at will. Women of colour are construed as a project in need of being saved, as long as the process does not mean truly acknowledging the role that race and class have played in our continuing oppression. Innovations like the pill and Depo Provera, that have been touted as life saving, and important to the advancement of women’s rights, were tested on women of colour, long before they entered the precious bloodstreams of White women. Yet, this history is erased to praise the ability of women to control their reproductive process. Once again, advancement for women was carried on the backs of women of colour. Even as I am writing this, I wonder how many blogs dedicated to reproductive justice have ignored this story and its historical significance, because it would mean confronting the horrible truth that reproductive justice is about far more than access to birth control, the right to have an abortion and supporting Planned Parenthood; its about validating the idea that women, and by women I mean women of colour, have paid the brunt of the cost in terms of violation due to the intersection or racism and sexism.”

A Forced Eugenics Survivor Speaks Her Truth

This is why the pro-life movement’s sudden concern for Black fetuses and it’s recent focus on the Black community is laughable, insulting, hypocritical, and downright racist.

— (via fuckyeahwomenprotesting2)

— Jessica Valenti, Full Frontal Feminism (via angrywomenoftumblr)