The Slow (But Accelerating) Erosion of Reproductive Rights

[jamesq]

So you want to ban abortion outright, but that pesky Roe v. Wade thing keeps coming up? What do you do? Well, you could simply make it more and more difficult to get an abortion. After all, you're not actually banning it, you're simply putting up every conceivable (heh) roadblock to it. If the monetary requirements (you don't think the mandatory ultrasound is going to be paid for by taxpayers do you?) don't clobber you, then the barrage of presentations "to keep you informed" might catch you in a moment of weakness. Finally, if navigating all the roadblocks take too long you'll hit your 22 (varies by state) week time limit.

And let's not forget the lengthy, allegedly anonymous, forms you have to fill out. I say "allegedly" because, despite not having your name, they're sufficiently detailed to allow a good data-miner to figure out who you are. How many 6'4", 42-year old, males with red hair own a house in my postal code? I haven't named names, but I bet you could attach a name to that information without much effort. Same for women filling out this information. Then it gets put up on a publicly accessible database, ostensibly for research purposes. The next day a brigade of anti-abortionists just happen to show up on your doorstep.

I'd compare it to a sibling putting his finger as close to your face as they can while chanting "I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you." Except that's funny and this situation isn't.

If these are successful, I predict that even more roadblocks will be put up. Multiple presentations, multiple invasive medical procedures, more detailed forms, all to "keep the mother informed". Time limits will be clawed back (Oops, sorry, but the fetus has nerve tissue now, we can't let you abort this late). The goal being to make it to expensive in terms of time and money to ever successfully get in under the wire.

When abortion is still technically legal, but effectively impossible, they'll declare victory. Seriously, I fully expect some politician to happily stand in front of a crowd and say that "We've made abortion so difficult to get in this state that no one successfully got one last year. Yay!"

Women who try to take things into their own hands will be charged with homicide. This could include self-induced abortions, using a back-alley abortionist, or simply traveling to a less-restrictive area. People who try to assist them will also be charged.

Predictions:

Pro-choice forces will come up with some way of giving women information remotely. decentralized web-sites with information on how to do your own abortion safely. Anti-abortion forces will try to infiltrate these sites, set up "look-alike" sites, etc. Legislatures will try to make the web-sites illegal.

You'll need to give personal information when buying home pregnancy kits.

Laws that outlaw helping people procure an abortion will become more draconian. Walk a woman past the clinic's protesters? That's a fine. Take her to another state? That's jail time. Hell, simply encouraging someone to get an abortion will become illegal.

It makes me glad I'm Canadian. Things aren't perfect here, but they are better. Calgary has an abortion clinic and it's generally free of protesters (due to court injunctions they have to stay well away from it - typically hundreds of feet). Of course, the fact that the building is built to withstand small explosives is testament to the fact that we're not yet as enlightened as I'd like.

Anyway, the whole thing is another attempt to punish women for all kinds of things: Chief among them having sex. Also violating traditional gender roles - married homemakers should want babies, and unmarried women shouldn't require abortions because they're not having sex. There are no other categories.

It all boils down to men making the decisions because women can't be trusted to make the right decisions themselves. It's patronizing, mean-spirited and increases the amount of suffering in the world.

Comments

[oblivions.livejournal.com]

This post makes me angry. Not at you, because I tend to believe the gloomy future you've painted but with my own desire to ensure I can't have children and how unfucking-believably difficult it is to get a doctor to consider my petition.

I want to be fixed. I've thought about this a lot for 10 YEARS. I'm as sure as they get. I getting to the end of years I would WANT to bear children. Everything time i bring it up, I effectively get a pat on the head and a "there there, there are all these difficulties with it. I think you should reconsider."

It drives me wild. I'm be going through round three this winter with my doctor. If he won't I'm going to find someone who will. It boggles me that, in trying to be a responsible member of my race, I've been effectively told I'm incapable of making that choice.

And I'm going to stop here for the moment, because I can feel my blood start to burn. This is a touchy topic with me.

[mallt.livejournal.com]

If he's really worried about you taking risks with the surgery say you want this:
http://essure.ca/Home/WhatisEssure/tabid/1222/Default.aspx

No surgery involved & gives (pretty much) the same end result.

[oblivions.livejournal.com]

The doctor won't even get to considering surgery. He's just brushes it right off.

But this is an interesting link. I have to admit to not being keen on the surgery and invasive nature of it. I shall look more into it. Thanks!

[jamesq]

You need to call this guy on his BS.

"I'm getting my tubes tied. How do I go forward with that?"
"I don't think you should do that."
"Your opinion is noted, now answer the question."

[mallt.livejournal.com]

Close minded much?! *sigh*

When I'm ready for a perminant solution it's certainly something I'll talk to my doctor about... I'm not keep on the idea of surgery much either... there again who is?! :)

[manyra.livejournal.com]

I had tube tied but the doctors (every one of them that I had since I was 16) said I should wait until I was 30. The day I turned 30 I was in. And then they asked what my partner thought of it. I said I was pretty sure my partner didn't have a say in what I wanted to do with my body.

[snooness2]

You know what really bugs me is that the same guys that don't want women to have abortions are the ones that are against Invitro and other artifical insemination technologies.

So not only can a women not make the choice to not have childern she can't make the choice to have childern if she wants them and can't have them by normal means.

Damn it women aren't stupid, we can make choices - just allow that choice and back up what ever that choice is with the safest options available.
(This topic really gets my goat too... and the anger isn't directed at you - clearly you understand that we can think and we should have choices about our own bodies.)

I'm really really upset at the hard line maternal care issue that Canada is taking. FFS if Canadian women have the right to choose abortion how dare our government say that the people in the third world do not have the same right in terms of our funding of maternal health.
(ooo really mad about this. I hope the generation of people in power who don't believe in letting people choose goes away soon.)

[mallt.livejournal.com]

"FFS if Canadian women have the right to choose abortion how dare our government say that the people in the third world do not have the same right in terms of our funding of maternal health."

THIS! I was astounded when I read that the other day!

maternal chealth funding

[wild-wanderer.livejournal.com]

I actually am glad at the hard line our government is taking.

I am 100% against abortion... That being said I am also pro choice. No these do not contradict each other.

I do not believe it is my place to tell someone that my beliefs outweigh theirs.

What our government is doing is saying we accept that our population can legally get abortions. Yours can to just not with our money.

When I lived in Montreal a friend of mine was having an abortion, her boyfriend (at one point fiance) did not believe in abortion and although he paid for the abortion, he would not go with her to get it done. My girlfriend at the time told me that she was stuck going and could I go as well. Since I am 100% against abortion, I said no and no I would not give them a lift.

I am all for realistic information being provided. I am all for trying to convince someone not to have an abortion. I not for public moneys being used either for the information against abortion or helping someone have an abortion. I do not think we should make it prohibitively expensive either.

The fact of the matter is that (in all but rape) the woman chose to have sex and this is the result. You made the choice you live with the consequences.

I should not be forced (even through my tax dollars) to help you. Especially not in someone else's country

Re: maternal chealth funding

[mallt.livejournal.com]

But your tax dollars are going towards abortions in Alberta.

Re: maternal chealth funding

[snooness2]

The fact of the matter is that (in all but rape) the woman chose to have sex and this is the result.


Yes but in many places our money goes to in the third world it is to help women who are getting abortions due to rape.... or alternately due to the fact it's their 10th child and there is a good chance they could die. It would also go towards the problem of abortions being done by the women themselves. That's why Canada gave us the right in the first place - there were statistically too many deaths being caused by backalley abortions.

Realistically we should fund all options. If the government wants to encourage the non-abortion thing then they can fund some types of maternal health associations more then others - but they should not take the choice off the table. There are a lot of legitimate reasons for abortion - health, and rape are just a couple.

PS: Maybe I'm just unlucky but the only women I know who had abortions did so because the fetus went cancerous and they didn't mis-carry. The result of such a thing is the slow eventual death of the women as the cells that would have been the child continue to grow and the body does not naturally abort them (which saps the mother of strength aside from all the issues a tumour that size in the uterus causes.

Re: maternal chealth funding

[jamesq]

I suggest that if you have a moral objection to abortion, you should frame it as such. Making an economic argument ("my tax dollars shouldn't fund it") is disingenuous. Simply put, abortion costs less then pregnancy, and continuing a pregnancy is exactly as much a voluntary choice as ending one.

Re: maternal chealth funding

[wild-wanderer.livejournal.com]

The difference J is that no one objects to continuing a pregnancy. Many people object to abortion. Also I outright stated at the front I am 100% against abortions.

Malt my tax dollars may got to abortion in Alberta, that does not mean i have to put my tax dollars to help someone in another country get an abortion.

Snoo the Conservatives are not saying the other countries in G8 can not fund abortions for third world countries just that Canada wont.

Re: maternal chealth funding

[jamesq]

"I am all for realistic information being provided. I am all for trying to convince someone not to have an abortion."

The point of the Oklahoma bill is not to give information (no matter what they claim), it's to force women to undergo an invasive and from what I've heard, downright painful, medical procedure that will cost them money that they might not have. You might not want your tax dollars going towards abortion, but is it fair to make women pay more then necessary to get one? The closest male equivalent I can come up with having to pay $300 to get a swift kick in the nuts prior to getting a vasectomy.

Re: maternal chealth funding

[wild-wanderer.livejournal.com]

I believe that if the government is forcing an additional step THEN the government should pay for that additional step.

Regarding Foreign Funding of Maternal Health

[jamesq]

I was going to make this point buried deep in the debate with wild_wanderer, but I realized it had little to do with that thread.

I think the government's decision is gutless pandering to social reactionaries, and it especially bugs me that they're trying to dress it up as being inclusive. "Yeah, abortion is a divisive issue, so we're going to knuckle under to one side of the debate. Hey, we're not actively opposing abortion, so that means we're being even handed right?" That's like building houses for white people and claiming you're not racist because you're not actively bulldozing the houses the black people manage to make without you.

Re: Regarding Foreign Funding of Maternal Health

[snooness2]

That's pretty close to my take.
I just think it's horrible that because an agency acting in the third world looks after all aspects of women's health, and happens to also do abortions that they have gotten their funding cut - because Canada refuses to fund any agencies that do abortions.

Ummm so what about all the other work that this group was doing?
CBC was interviewing a maternal health group in ethiopia that just had it's funding cut off. The group was mainly handing our contriceptives, and only providing abortions to women who had "pressing health reasons for one" (because safe abortions were expensive)... their list or pressing health reasons: fistula issues (medical), rape, ruptured uterus (medical), and having had more then 10 childern (hmmm I count that as a medical necessity).

One of my issues with wild_wanderer's reasoning is that it looks at the 3rd world problems from a 1st world context. The women that are getting abortions in the 3rd world are not the same demographic as those in the 1st world. Typically they are older (20-40), have families, and are in war zones. We are not talking about women who are aborting because they don't want their lifestyle disrupted, or are teens that made a mistake. These are women who do not have the right to say no to the husband they are legally married to, who can barely afford food let alone contraceptives, who will either die in pregnancy, or in desperation will take abortive plants if not given another option. These women take great risks to obtain an abortion - much like what was occuring in Canada in the 1900's, when abortion was illegal.

Also why don't the politicians think the Canadian population won't recognize the hyprocrisy for such a stance it beyond my comprehension.

Look Again ...

[http://users.livejournal.com/-grog-/]

I hate to point this out, but these same kinds of tactics are being played out in Canada's parliament as we speak.

Consider Bill C-510 that was recently tabled by the Rod Bruinooge, Ken Epp's slimy Bill C-484, or for that matter the HarperCon$ "Maternal Health" initiative for the G8.

There's a single, simple word for the attitude these acts represent: Misogyny.

Its not a hatred or mistrust of women

[wild-wanderer.livejournal.com]

Why is it misogyny to not be willing to pay for someone else's mistake?

I have not read bill c-510 or c-484

I do not feel it is misogynistic to not be willing to spend money on something I am totally opposed to.

How dare you compare being anti abortion as being hatred against women.

As I say I believe a woman has the right to choose (even if here choice is something I don't support). I, however, also have a right to chose. I choose not to be willing to spend money for her to make a choice I am against (that being said if I got someone pregnant and they chose abortion, while I do not support it, I would pay my share and if she could not pay her share then hers to. For the same reason that I do not believe the government should pay for abortions, because I was responsible for the pregnancy).

Re: Its not a hatred or mistrust of women

[mallt.livejournal.com]

"someone else's mistake"
What if it wasn't a mistake? Who's mistake is a failure of a contraceptive?

Re: Its not a hatred or mistrust of women

[jamesq]

Your argument, writ large, could be used against universal health care for victims of "preventable" diseases (i.e ones related to poor life-style choices). Maybe you're OK with that. After all, if people were simply responsible, then they wouldn't need health care. You hear this in the states a lot: "Why are my tax dollars being used to help out those undeserving people."

If you're against your tax dollars being spent on private health matters between a patient and their doctor in this case, why not others? That's a serious question - what makes type-2 diabetes brought on by a lifetime of overeating eligible where pregnancy does not? Both were preventable, neither were desired.

_grog_ can certainly defend herself, but I'd like to interject that I agree with her: It is misogyny. Anti-abortion forces might argue that they don't hate women per se, but they are advancing legislation that says "We know better then you". It designed primarily to shame and punish women with pregnancy. They call themselves pro-life, but the fact that they make exceptions for incest or rape is telling: exceptions to anti-abortion laws coincide with situations where the woman had sex against her will. Sex where it was the woman's choice requires punishment.

Re: Its not a hatred or mistrust of women

[oblivions.livejournal.com]

It takes two to make that mistake. Never forget that.

Re: Its not a hatred or mistrust of women

[jamesq]

More to the point, are you willing for your tax dollars to go towards curing sexually-transmitted diseases?

Re: Look Again ...

[jamesq]

Hmm. I can't seem to find C-510 to look at (it appears to have the same number as a ten-year old farm finances bill).

C-484 is a typical back-door anti-abortion bill. Criminalize the harming of a fetus in the hope that we can then criminalize abortion itself. It works because of the "think of the children" emotionalism.

I sometimes think we should bend over backwards to keep Quebec in Confederation simply to counteract the social reactionaries.

But yeah, we ain't perfect.

Re: Look Again ...

[oblivions.livejournal.com]

Nice friggin' can of worms you opened here. ;) I love you for it.