Women’s rights & abortion rights were abandoned a long time ago

We’ve been tone-policed into total colonization of our bodies

Take a walk down memory lane and enjoy this essay on abortion rights originally published April 19, 2015 by Brook Hines at The Florida Squeeze

A note on the image: If you’re offended by the symbol of back-alley abortions, then you don’t understand the history of women’s struggle for equality and bodily autonomy. The two cannot be separated.

I’ve been criticized by a gay man and former State Legislator for using this image on campaign materials. To him I say, use the time on your hands since losing re-election to educate yourself on OUR STRUGGLES AS WOMEN the same way we did the work to educate ourselves and advocate on behalf of LGBTQ+ rights.

Women have fought for WOMEN’S RIGHTS for generations and the tone police who seek to silence us can’t erase that history. We’re on our own and it’s taken entirely too long to recognize that fact. There’s no political party, NGO or corporate progressive organization that’s ever coming to OUR defense. We’ve trusted them for 50 years to codify Roe and look what that’s gotten us.

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This week I traveled to Tallahassee to “tell my abortion story” to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Along with two other women, we went to make women’s voices heard as the fate of the Mandatory Wait Bill (SB 724) was “considered.” I put “considered” in scare quotes because we all know that there’s no “consideration” in these matters.

And, the fact that I was the only one of the three of us who was able to tell my story proves they never intended to allow women to be heard. They hid behind a procedural rule to cut off testimony, because what could women possibly add to a debate that’s already been decided? The suppressed testimony of the two other women can be found here, and here. They had a lot to add, as you’ll learn when you watch these videos, and it’s outrageous that they weren’t permitted to be heard. My own testimony focused on the fact that while our stories are different, we share the opinion that we don’t need Tallahassee politicians inserting themselves into our lives to remind us of the seriousness of our decisions. Everyone knows that mandatory wait laws are impediments made in bad faith by snickering opponents of reproductive rights.

It’s clear to me that the only way to fight back is to step out of the shadows, and roar. So let the headlines read “Local Woman Has Abortion 25 Years ago: Still Doesn’t Regret It.”

In the 40-plus years since Roe v. Wade, we’ve lost so much ground that reproductive freedom barely exists anymore, and this threatens our basic human rights as women. I believe that if we don’t put a human face on it we’re ceding another victory to our opposition.

Refusing to fight for, and personalize reproductive rights was a mistake we made in the 90s. We thought that finally having a Democratic president after 12 years of Reagan/Bush meant we could rest easy on this issue of women’s rights. Far from codifying Roe, as was promised, the Clintons further horse-traded abortion rights away, while telling us to sit tight and not “attack” our own party. Remember! the rising tide would float all boats. They never meant it. The Clintons were NOT sympathetic to abortion rights and did damage to reproductive rights that Republican Administrations could only dream of.

This is precisely when things went haywire. Following the lead of the Clintons, political thinkers and Democrats in Congress began asking, “Where can women compromise?” One the answer was ‘late term abortion,’ which is a procedure that’s used only under the most extreme circumstances when the life of mother or child is at stake. People needing this procedure aren’t seeking birth control. They’re fighting for their lives. And yet this seemed a “reasonable” goddamn place to cede ground — it was the camel’s nose under the tent.

Once you abandon the foundational premise that we’re equal members of society with full agency over our healthcare decisions, the forces that desire to “keep us in our place” are empowered on all levels. Forget equal pay, or the right to seek healthcare without discrimination. We’re all “daddy’s little girls” now.

I remember having this discussion with my mentor, a professor of political theory at my university, while I was in grad school. This was the person who taught The Handmaid’s Tale in Intro To Political Science 101. His discussion of the book showed how reproductive rights encompassed more than the literal ability to terminate a pregnancy. They circumscribe our agency as human beings. Losing control of the size and nature of our families ensures institutional abuse of women and economic marginalization.

Soon, bipartisan negotiations began under the delusion that right wing ideologues would bargain in good faith. It’s just a mandatory counseling session here, and a 24-hour “cooling off” period there. What’s a transvaginal ultrasound between friends? Surely this won’t lead eliminating most of the women’s clinics in Texas, or contribute to a woman in Indiana being sent to to prison for a ‘suspicious miscarriage.’ To suggest this was a slippery slope down which the rest of rights would soon tumble was considered unreasonable.

And yet, the ground lost through mandatory wait laws, mandatory counseling, mandatory invasive imaging, admitting privilege rules, and insane over-regulation has added up to the effective virtual repeal of Roe in many states. Republicans in Mississippi cackled openly about how laws requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges in local hospitals were aimed at eliminating abortion in the state altogether.

It’s a feature, not a bug, when no facilities exist to access the procedure.

It’s a feature, not a bug, when a woman is priced out of the ability to access the procedure.

It’s a feature, not a bug, when a woman is time-limited out of the ability access the procedure.

It’s a feature, not a bug, when a woman is shamed out of the ability to access the procedure.

And what’s the effect of all this? Here’s Sen. Hillary Clinton in 2009 clearly articulating how chipping away at reproductive rights sends women into a “cycle of poverty and abuse.” When asked if the administration had any plans to further restrict abortions in the developing world she responded:

“I’ve been in hospitals in Brazil where half the women were enthusiastically and joyfully greeting new babies and the other half were fighting for their lives against botched abortions.”

“I’ve been in African countries where 12 and 13 year old girls are bearing children. I have been in Asian countries where the denial of family planning confines women to lives of oppression and hardship.”

It’s easy to articulate when we’re talking about other countries but we too often refuse to look into the mirror ourselves. It’s obvious that restrictions on access to women’s healthcare is creating a United States that accepts third world status for women. Tell me again where it is that we jail women for suspicious miscarriages. Saudi Arabia? Sierra Leone? Oh right … Indiana.