I am pro-choice

I am also pro-life. No, these two ideas aren't mutually exclusive. Let me explain:

I do not like these classifications for the abortion debate. Using the 'pro-life' name for the anti-abortion argument creates the idea that the other side is 'pro-death,' and that's not the case AT ALL. Advocating to keep abortion legal is only advocating for women's rights. Criminalizing abortion will not save lives, it will only take more lives. If someone has decided they are going to get an abortion, nothing is going to stop them, but eliminating safe, sterile facilities where women can go will cause them to turn to unsafe arenas, or 'back alley abortions.' More often than not, these procedures leave women sterile due to infection or scarring, and they can even kill the woman. Explain to me how a woman dying is pro-life.

Within this argument lies, for me, another issue: sex education. I do not think abstinence only education is at all helpful. All it does is teach kids that sex is bad, and that they should wait. Never in any of those conversations are kids actually taught about safe sex. They don't learn how to protect themselves from STIs, unwanted teenage pregnancies, HIV, etc. In my own experience, I came from a school district that didn't necessarily advocate for safe sex/sex education, but it wasn't completely abstinence only. We had our 8th grade health class that taught us about drugs and an overview of sexual diseases and contraception, but it wasn't until my sophomore year that I learned anything of value.

In my second semester that year, I was continuing with my Aerobics class, and one day a week we would take the day off from exercising and learn about healthy food choices, etc. One day, my teacher surprised us by bringing in a gynecologist to talk to us about contraception. She felt that because we were all there to learn how to take care of our bodies, we should have the knowledge to make safe choices for ourselves, and that included knowing about our options. We all got handouts with information regarding the most common types of contraception, from condoms to diaphragms to cervical caps to 'The Pill,' and the gynecologist even brought in a few examples and passed them around so we would know what they looked like. This was the first time, outside of lunch table conversations with my friends, that I'd actually learned something about my options regarding birth control.

I am pro-choice. I think a woman has a right to choose what happens to her body. I don't think anyone should be able to tell her what she can or cannot do. I think it's wrong when the ones making decisions about women's bodies are middle-aged (white) men who will never have to worry about getting pregnant. I think people need to be educated in regards to contraception before they become sexually active. I think it's complete idiocy to be pro-life and advocate for abstinence only education in schools...it's only going to make things worse in the end.

I am pro-choice, pro-life, pro-child, pro-woman.

Pre-Pregnant

I am getting married in the summer, so I am trying to get in as many doctors appointments as possible before then. While discussing this with my mother, we had the following conversation:

Mom: When you see your doctor, ask her about putting you on prenatal vitamins.

Me: . . . Why?

Mom: In case you get pregnant.

Me: I'm not planning on having kids for at least a couple of years.

Mom: But just in case.

Me: I'm on the Pill.

Mom: It's what they're recommending now, for all women who are sexually active, just in case.

Me: I really disagree with that reasoning.

Mom: You never know. Your Aunt X got pregnant with her son Y while she was using a diaphragm.

Though she is well meaning, my mother puts me between a rock and a hard place. If I don't go on prenatal vitamins, I must be a baby-hating monster. If I do go on the vitamins, I am contributing to a mindset where women's needs are pushed aside in favor of the needs of a fetus--a theoretical, non-existent fetus that I am doing everything to prevent.

Her recommendation is part of a growing trend in medicine. In 2006, a group of medical organizations released federal guidelines asking all women capable of conceiving "to treat themselves--and to be treated by the health care system--as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon." They wrote these guidelines on the grounds that half of all pregnancies are unplanned. If early prenatal care is better for preventing birth defects, then surely beginning it before the pregnancy starts is the best possible scenario. Some of the things they ask sexually active women do include:

• Take folic acid supplements or prenatal vitamins
• Stop smoking and avoid alcohol
• Maintain a healthy weight
• Keep chronic conditions under control
• Make sure vaccinations are up to date
• Avoid contact with lead-based paints and cat feces
• Avoid workplace hazards

These guidelines sound innocuous enough. Most of them are good guidelines for any adult, male or female, who wants to maintain a healthy lifestyle. I certainly agree that a woman should take prenatal vitamins and follow the other guidelines if she is actively trying to conceive. I have no problem with a doctor asking a female patient if she is planning on getting pregnant within the next year, and discussing the guidelines with her if she responds in the affirmative. I support healthy pregnancies and healthy babies.

The problem comes when the label of "pre-pregnant," and the guidelines that follow, are applied to every single woman at every single moment, without regard for the woman's health or autonomy. It leaves no room for a woman's actual level of sexual activity or her sexual orientation. It does not factor in whether the woman actually wants to get pregnant or the steps she's taking to prevent unwanted pregnancy. I've read stories of women who were writhing in pain in the emergency room, but were delayed medical care because they had to wait on the results of a hospital-administered pregnancy test. Women have been denied medication on the grounds that they are women of child-bearing years and the best medication available is one that can cause birth defects. In some of the stories I read, the only way the women were able to get the care they needed in a prompt manner was to say, "I am on birth control and if I am pregnant, I will have an abortion." Women's health care is being detrimentally effected in favor of the health of non-existent pregnancies. This treads very close to the worldview of the anti-choice movement. The "pre-pregnant" woman is just a vessel, with no needs unto herself and no worth other than her future childbearing ability.

Besides the way it complicates health care for women, the "pre-pregnant" guidelines can also have legal ramifications. What begins as a "guideline" can easily morph into an "obligation," which can eventually become law. There are already proposed laws and creatively interpreted laws in many parts of the country that limit the actions of pregnant women. Some past incidents include:

• In 2006, an Arkansas state representative proposed a law in his state legislature that would ban pregnant women from smoking.
• In Alabama, 35 women have been arrested for "chemical endangerment of a child" because they tested positive for drugs immediately after giving birth. Most of the babies were healthy and full term. Of the babies that did not survive, none of their causes of death were attributed to drugs. The original law was meant to apply to people who allow children to be around meth labs.
• In 2010, a pregnant Iowa woman was arrested for "attempted feticide" after falling down a flight of stairs and admitting to a health care official that she was originally ambivalent about keeping the pregnancy.
• In March 2010, the Utah state legislature passed a law that would allow up to a life sentence for a woman who has a miscarriage or stillbirth as a result of "reckless" behavior. After criticism erupted around the country, they changed the law to remove the word "reckless," but would still allow for the prosecution of women who commit "knowing" acts that can result in miscarriage or stillbirth.

If the medical establishment automatically assumes all women to be pregnant until proven not, such laws can inhibit the freedom of all women. They even open the possibility of more laws. Can all women be barred from smoking or drinking alcohol? Can women be denied drivers licenses, on the grounds that they might crash and harm a theoretical fetus? Can women be pushed out of certain occupations with "workplace hazards" that harm fetuses? Can women be forced to diet if they are overweight? This sounds like a situation out of 1984 or The Handmaids Tale, but it isn't so far fetched for women who are currently in jail for supposedly harming their pregnancies.

Even without the laws, these guidelines leave women open to judgement from the very medical professionals who are supposed to help them. Women, especially those with substance abuse issues, might avoid medical help out of fear that they will be accused of harming a potential pregnancy. (Note that in the above scenarios, women were reported to the police by health care workers.) These guidelines also ignore the class issues involved with women's health. Many women are unable to afford medical care for themselves, let alone prenatal vitamins for a non-existant pregnancy. They lack the time and money to eat healthy and exercise. They are in a position where they can't quit jobs that have "workplace hazards." These factors need attention so that women can become healthy for their own sake.

When I go to the doctor, I want my doctor to think about what is best for my health. With the "pre-pregnant" guidelines, the attention is no longer on me, but rather on a role I'm expected to fulfill. While I want what's best for my future children (again, when I decide to have them), it cannot come at the cost of the health, autonomy, and desires of women in general. Incidentally, if my mom wanted to scare me with the dangers of not taking prenatal vitamins immediately, she picked a bad example. My Aunt X's son Y grew up to be a doctor.

Bumper Sticker

From time to time we have all seen offensive bumper stickers. During our recent gubernatorial election I managed to see some that displayed an almost unbelievable level of willful ignorance. That species of shameful delusional rhetoric you would think people would want to keep to themselves rather than plaster on their vehicle. The sort of bumper sticker that puts a person’s fears and weakness out there for all to see.

Yesterday I saw something that for so many reasons shouldn’t have bothered me but still managed to. The slogan was simple. “YOU CANNOT BE CATHOLIC AND PRO ABORTION!“ Nothing so demanding that it couldn’t be easily dismissed as just another tactless missive.

What really began to bother me about it was the person behind the bumper sticker. Who was this person? Why did they feel the need to put this slogan on there SUV? It seemed to me that they were trapped by it, this fearful, unreasoning, brutal command. It is a truth that the violence of such slogans is directed inward, perhaps even more than outward.

As such it seems so unnecessary, so regrettable that any one would willingly make such a small and self-destructive world to inhabit. We most certainly do create our own realities, for what we are willing to believe about the world around us and what we put out in to the world will, by and large, be the measure with which the world repays us. In short the world and people will, for the most part, rise to our expectations.

As a Roman Catholic and father of two toddlers I represent living proof of at least the inaccuracy of the statement. I would argue that no one is Pro Abortion. The demands of humanity require our understanding, compassion, and fairness of thought and action. Neither legislation nor religious dogma can end abortion, but legislation can make abortion a safe option for those in need. It is a human imperative that if a woman is to be charged with bringing new life to this world then she must have that measure of fullest autonomy over her own body and its process. By her choice alone.

So why are so many people willing to live in that fearful, small place behind the bumper sticker? Choice is an integral component of women’s health, an acknowledgment of autonomy, and a measure of respect. I have two children to raise, children that were brought into this world in perfection. It shall be my care to insure they know the world for what it is, a place of immense beauty and complexity. No one can afford to waste their gifts or their time in this world behind the bumper sticker.

Dr. David Bowman

before the pill

My best friend in high school had three older brothers and one day I must have asked why they were so much older than she. Her story was that her dad's first wife had the three boys and got pregnant again. She could not handle another child financially or emotionally so she decided on a coat hanger abortion. She died from the infection and the three boys were living from one relative to another while their father worked and until he married again. They loved their new stepmother but this would never have to happend today because of all that planned parenthood has done. My daughter had a friend who was having sex and was only 16, so I told her to take her to planned parenthood for information. I knew I could not get involved. They went and it was a happy ending. Her friend got on the pill and about ten years later sent a birth invitation to my daughter. Their friendship had ended because of schools, etc. but she never forgot who helped her control her life. heleng

Three Sisters

HI. I am Frankie. I am 58. I have two sisters and two brothers. My sisters and I were born within a three and a half year time span of each other. We attended the same public schools and grew up in a very entrenched Catholic heritage that harkened back generations on both sides of our family. As adults, we found ourselves leading very different lifestyles and making very different choices and decisions. Among the three of us, one of us gave up a baby for adoption, one of us was treated for infertility and one of us had an abortion.

This is what being pro-choice means to me. 

It means that each woman, each family, has choices about family planning, pregnancies, unintended or intended. It means that these decisions are made by the individual, in consultation with their physicians, caregivers and other significant members of their families. It is not a decision dictated by government or religious doctrines.

Each of us may have made a different choice at a different time in our lives. But the point is that we had a choice, we evaluated those options and, based on our needs, situations and resources at the time, we made our decisions. And that's how I believe it should be.

Don't Just Treat the Symptom. Cure the Disease!

Growing up in the Chicago suburbs, puberty hit me early and hard. My brother and I got our first pimples around the same time, only he was 16 and I was 10. I had premenstrual cramps that even four ibuprofen at a time didn't stop. My mood changed at the drop of a hat. My anxiety about my appearance took a hit when I found stray black hairs on my chin. It wasn't until high school, when I went 3.5 months in a row without getting my period--twice--that I realized something was very wrong. Several rounds of doctors visits revealed the cause. I had Poly-Cystic Ovary Syndrome, a condition in which the body produces too much testosterone. If left untreated, PCOS can cause infertility, heart disease, uterine cancer, and diabetes. I later learned that this condition is fairly common among American women.

My reproductive endocrinologist, an expert on PCOS, prescribed Yasmin, a type of hormonal birth control pill. It would regulate my hormones, ease my symptoms, and hopefully reduce my risk of developing worse complications. The Pill is a standard treatment for a variety of hormone imbalances.

A couple months after starting the Pill, I found out the disturbing fact that my family's health insurance was not covering it. My parents had to cover my necessary medical treatment out of pocket every month. This was a fairly large sum, since Yasmin was still new and did not have a generic version.

After about a year, my dad had good news. Our insurance would start covering the Pill--as long as they received a signed letter from my doctor stating that he was not prescribing it for contraceptive purposes. I was annoyed enough when our policy wouldn't cover the Pill at all, but what should have been good news instead left me angry. The insurance company didn't support a medication being used for it's intended purpose. I could be on birth control, as long as I wasn't using it for birth control! I knew that the insurance company would never get away with treating other medications in this way. They continued this requirement until then-governor Rod Blagojevich signed a state law requiring all insurance policies to cover birth control.

This was the incident that lead to me here, at 26, volunteering as an intern for NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin. Reproductive health should be a medical issue, not a political one. It's not enough to make exceptions for conditions like mine. We need to ensure choice for all women. Whether a woman goes on the Pill for contraception or disease management, whether she wants to have an abortion or undergo fertility treatments . . . these choices should be hers to make under the guidance of a non-biased physician. As someone once said, politicians make lousy doctors.

Hey There Blog World

Hello NARAL supporters! I’m excited to begin blogging and sharing my thoughts with you especially in this new legislative session. Rather than going on about any particular topic, I’ll share with you a bit about myself and my interests in the pro-choice movement. My name is Victoria and I am a Junior at UW-Madison studying Community and Nonprofit Leadership as well as Gender and Women’s Studies. I have been volunteering with pro-choice organizations for over a year now and have definitely found my passion in doing so. Upon graduation I hope to secure a position in a nonprofit working towards reproductive justice, but we’ll see what opportunities arise!

I am known among my friends as being up front and honest about my feelings and perspectives, and I’m also known as the pro-choice advocate. Whether they look upon that favorably or not, I think they respect me for it, and I hope that my posts will at the very least, get you to think and respect my perspective. I welcome your comments and hope that we can all learn something in the process.

Finally, I am pro-choice for the families who are struggling to get by, the children who are craving attention but can’t seem to find it, the teens whom are still children trying to dealing with very adult situationst, and for the women who deserve their right to choose….but more elaboration on those thoughts will come at a later date. J

Getting real about abortion in Wisconsin

The Too Many Aborted campaign, sponsored by The Radiance Foundation and Pro-Life Wisconsin, features 13 billboards in Milwaukee with the messages "Black Children are in Danger" and "Black & Beautiful." The campaign positions adoption as the only option for unwanted pregnancies and accuses abortion clinics of having a secret agenda to eliminate African-American babies. Here's a look at the real numbers, issues and solution concerning abortion in Wisconsin.



The real numbers

PolitiFact Wisconsin analyzed Pro-Life Wisconsin's claim that in Wisconsin, "6.2 percent of the population is black yet 24 percent of all state abortions are on African-Americans," which wrongly compares the overall African-American population to that of African-American women of child-bearing age.

PolitiFact's research shows that in 2009:

• 88.3% of women ages 15 to 44 in Wisconsin were white and white women accounted for 69% of the abortions performed in the state.
• 7.5% of women ages 15 to 44 in Wisconsin were African-American and African-American women accounted for 24% of the abortions performed in the state.

PolitiFact concluded that "socioeconomic factors, rather than race, have been identified as key contributors to the higher abortion rate among black women."


The real issues
In a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel op-ed, Sarah Noble, Managing Director of Milwaukee's Reproductive Justice Collective, an organization led by women of color, responded to the billboards: "Black babies not only deserve to live; they deserve to live healthy lives in healthy families and in healthy communities. Ensuring the health of black babies means addressing the current state of black families: impoverishment, lack of education and joblessness, at crisis levels in Wisconsin."

Statistics from the op-ed:

• Milwaukee's poverty rate is the fourth-worst among the biggest cities in the nation.
• African-American males in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) have a 31% graduation rate, African-American females in MPS have a 46% graduation rate, and white males in MPS have a 66% graduation rate.
• In 2009, Wisconsin's unemployment rate was 9.4% overall and 33.3% among black males.
• In Wisconsin, a black baby is three times more likely to die before his or her first birthday than a white child. Moreover, Wisconsin's infant mortality rate is among the highest in the nation.

"These billboards- and the groups behind them- say and do nothing to address these dire disparities," said Noble. "Instead, they aim to distract us from addressing the structural, institutional, economic and political barriers that lead to poor health outcomes for black women and black babies."


The real solution

To decrease the need for abortion services, all women need access to reproductive health care including comprehensive sex education and contraceptives that prevent unwanted pregnancies.

"If you really care about shrinking the number of abortions, and if you care about women, then you'll be happy to give them the medicine that will prevent an abortion down the road," said Pema Levy on Change.org's Women's Rights Blog. "But it's not about abortion, it's about control. And the more they try to police women's bodies, the more they endanger women's lives."

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin's new blog!

We are excited to be launching our blog on NARAL Pro-Choice America's annual "Blog for Choice Day". On Blog for Choice Day, pro-choice bloggers across the country are asked to answer a question on their blogs. This year, the question is, "Given the anti-choice gains in the states and Congress, are you concerned about choice in 2011?"

The short answer to that question is that as the Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, I am always concerned about choice. Of course, it's not that simple. Our new Governor and his colleagues in the State Legislature pose the single biggest threat to choice in Wisconsin in a generation.

Already, anti-choice legislators are threatening to ban insurance coverage for abortion - even in private plans paid for with our own money - under Wisconsin's implementation of federal health care reform. Despite the success of the recently passed Healthy Youth Act, they wish to go back to the days of ineffective abstinence-only sex education for our youth. Other prevention bills implemented last year - such as Contraceptive Equity and Prescription Protection - are at risk of repeal, and Governor Walker has promised reductions and roll-backs in our state's Badger Care and Family Planning Waiver programs. While serving in the Legislature, he even tried to defund family planning service providers like Planned Parenthood.

Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Anti-choice groups are lobbying for legislation that would force a woman seeking an abortion to view an ultra-sound against her own will, and they are petitioning their supporters to push the Legislature to move forward a so-called personhood amendment that would give rights to a fetus. With anti-choice extremists in control of the Governor's office and both houses of the State Legislature, the possibilities are endless.

So in response to the Blog for Choice Day question, yes, I am concerned - even alarmed - but not defeated. The election that put these anti-choice extremists in office was not a mandate on abortion. Wisconsin has faced significant economic challenges, and these newly elected officials promised economic development and jobs. The majority of Wisconsinites are pro-choice, and we will be there to remind Governor Walker and our legislators that they were elected on these promises, not to take away our fundamental reproductive freedom. Despite our vigilance, we may lose some battles along the way, but we will not be defeated.

Our newly elected leaders are poised to move forward with their extreme anti-choice and anti-woman agenda. Each time anti-choice legislation is introduced, we will be there to remind them that not a single job is created by meddling with our uteruses. We will be there fighting for our rights every step of the way. And we will be tracking every bill, recording every vote, documenting every anti-choice action, and preparing for pro-choice victory in the 2012 election.