Under siege: North Dakota's last abortion clinic fights on →

stfuprolifers:

The state capital is home to the last facility offering terminations. And as laws tighten across America, the pro-life movement is starting to scent victory…

Abortion providers view the backlash of recent years – spurred in part by the conservative sweep of the 2010 mid-term elections – with dread. They see the Gosnell case as an example of what happens with a clinic if it is not properly regulated by competent overseers: something that would happen a lot more if abortion was made impossible to get in any single state and back-alley abortions returned to America.

But in states such as North Dakota, which now faces a genuine threat to its last clinic, that prospect might become a reality. If it did, Kromenaker believes, it would be a disaster. Abortion would not stop, as its opponents would hope – instead, it would simply disappear into the dangerous shadows. It would also make abortion a class issue. In states with no clinics, only richer women would be able to afford to travel elsewhere to get the procedure done.

Meanwhile, poor women who did not want to be pregnant would have to go through with undesired births. “Whether or not you have children is a right for all women and it should not depend on where you live or how much you earn. We don’t want North Dakotans to be second-class citizens,” said Julie Rikelman, policy director at the Center for Reproductive Rights, a group that is providing legal help in fighting many of the new anti-abortion laws.

The anti-choicers supporting this are only creating an atmosphere that another Gosnell could thrive in.

SMH at people who don’t think abortion is already a class issue.

Bébinn: For All Your Pro-Choice Needs!: I could not resist. →

girlswithvoices:

girlswithvoices:

I hate the way our society deals with abortion.

Instead of using the Gosnell case to further your political motives, why don’t you write a letter to the families who are forever affected by these tragedies.

Why don’t you set aside your pitch forks and come together around…

Gosnell himself preyed on naive women, not laws, a real person. If women were more educated on late term abortions this would not have happened, and if there is anything the pro life movement is good at its ranting about LTAs like its going out of style. The pro choice movement is the one that hardly addresses late term abortions (which makes sense, because they are so rare, and heartbreaking), and only just recently released the locations that women can receive the procedure from (I think its three doctors in the whole country.)

Our society as a whole rejects poor, working class, immigrant women. We refuse to learn other languages, or give people a helping hand. Our entire agenda as a nation (not the pro life or pro choice side) contributes to the exploitation of women like this. And finger pointing does’t make it any better. 

That’s what I’m talking about when I talk about stigma, cutting funding for health care clinics that serve that demographic, and abstinence-only policies and the funding they get from the government, to name a few. Those are problems we all play our part in, and that we all need to address. What happened to those women didn’t happen in a social vacuum, as you pointed out - nor did it happen in a political one.

As an aside, while there certainly aren’t enough, there are more than three late-term abortion providers. I indicated clinics that provide abortions up to and after 21 weeks in the list on the Abortion Assistance Blog, and there are 78 of those. About a third of those perform them up to or past 24 weeks. Five perform them up to 26 weeks, and three perform them past 26 weeks, which maybe is what you were thinking of?

I could not resist.

girlswithvoices:

I hate the way our society deals with abortion.

Instead of using the Gosnell case to further your political motives, why don’t you write a letter to the families who are forever affected by these tragedies.

Why don’t you set aside your pitch forks and come together around the pain we feel for everyone involved.

Pennsylvania has no abortion restrictions besides the ones appointed by Roe V Wade, so no abortion restrictions weren’t the cause of this.

Most abortions take place way before these abortions did, so no this is not what abortion, abortion doctors, and abortion clinics look like. (Ive had an abortion, and spoken to hundreds of other women who have, if you have questions, why don’t you asked us, instead of assuming?)

A hateful situation has simply created more hate.

These women deserved better. They deserved to be taken care of by loving, kind, doctors. They deserved honesty, compassion, and safety. And now they deserve respect, an ethical outlet for their experiences to be shared, and open minded listening. 

For those of you who are genuinely curious about late term abortions please find the stories of the brave woman who have posted them online, I’ve reblogged some on this blog as well.

To point to any one incident and say “This! This is the face of abortion/women/doctors/restrictions” is ridiculous. 

I know what it feels like for people to use your abortion experience to further their cause, it makes you feel worthless. The women affected by Gosnells crimes are not worthless, they are worthy of better. 

Instead of wanting to go out and vote, I want to go out and offer any support I can to anyone involved. Thats the difference between Pro Voice and Pro Choice/Life. 

#RantOver

I appreciate your sentiment, but the majority of Gosnell’s victims were young, poor, and often immigrants or non-native English speakers. That’s not a coincidence, it is related to anti-choice legislation and stigma, and it needs to be addressed.

anarcho-queer:

The Sylvia Rivera Food Pantry Helping New Yorkers Suffering From Food Insecurity

The Sylvia Rivera Food Pantry meets the nutritional needs of a diverse group of low-income, working poor and HIV+ individuals and families in an environment of respect and confidentiality. Last year, The Sylvia Rivera Food Pantry served over 170,000 pounds of food and offered thousands of referrals to culturally-competent community partners.

Their client-choice model allows guests to select their own groceries, thus eliminating food waste and putting choice back in the hands of those receiving food. Snack bags of nutritious food are available to all, four days a week. A specialized pantry program for those living with HIV/AIDS offers high-protein, easy to prepare groceries that complement anti-retroviral therapy. On Thursday mornings, the Sylvia Rivera Food Pantry is open to all, providing assistance in English, Spanish and Mandarin.

The Sylvia Rivera Food Pantry has turned grocery distribution into an ongoing opportunity for nutrition education and benefits outreach. They provide information in multiple languages to clients for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and guide them toward moving beyond the food pantry. The partnership has also resulted in dozens of clients filing their New York State Earned Income Tax Credit. In addition, a partnership with the Chelsea CSA enables them to provide fresh, organic produce for our customers each week.

Schedule:

Client-Choice Pantry Distribution (open to all):
Thursday 9 a.m. –10 a.m.

Snack Bag Distribution (open to all):
Tuesday – Friday, 2 p.m. – 3 p.m.

PLWHA Pantry (M11Q required):
Tuesday – Friday, 2 p.m. – 3 p.m.

Community Dinner (open to all):
Final Tuesday of each month at 5:30 p.m.

446 West 36th Street, Ground Floor

For more information contact Christopher Collazo, The Sylvia Rivera Food Pantry Director.

(via so-treu)

Tumblr, in all its glorious wisdom, won’t let me reblog myself, but please reblog my post, Resources for Decision-Making and Low-Income Parenting! The more people who know about it, the better!

List of free clinics in the United States →

thetart:

also uninsured and low income sliding scale clinics

(Source: wheeliewifee, via becauseiamawoman)

Michigan Cuts Tax Credits for Children…But Wants to Add them for Fetuses

myplannedparenthood:

Yes, you read that right. 

…huh.

2 in 5 Michigan children live in or near poverty, and the overall poverty rate has increased 66% since 2001. The child poverty rate in Detroit is almost 60%. These children are living, breathing, born human beings experiencing hunger, chronic stress, underfunded schools, and all the other problems associated with the three.

Just something for Michigan legislators to mull over.

"They found that a year after the event, the women who were turned away from an abortion were more likely to rely on government assistance, more likely to be living beneath the poverty line, and less likely to have a full-time job than the women in the study who had obtained abortions. They also registered more anxiety a week after they were denied an abortion and reported more stress a year out. They were no more or less likely to be depressed. And women who gave birth suffered from more serious health complications—from hemorrhaging to a fractured pelvis—than the women who aborted, even later in their pregnancies.

Happy home lives also failed to materialize. The women who were turned away were more than twice as likely to be a victim of domestic violence as those who were able to abort. The researchers found that “a year after being denied an abortion, 7 percent reported an incident of domestic violence in the last six months,” compared to 3 percent of the women who received abortions. The researchers concluded that this “wasn’t because the turnaways were more likely to get into abusive relationships,” but that “getting abortions allowed women to get out of such relationships more easily.” Carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term helped abusive men stay in these women’s lives, but it didn’t encourage delinquent new dads to stick around: The researchers found that “men were no more likely to live with a turnaway who’d borne their children than they were to live with a woman who had an abortion.”

The abortion debate often focuses on a woman’s health during those first nine months. This study shows that an unwanted pregnancy can have long-lasting effects on a woman’s body and well-being far after she carries it to term."

Amanda Hess writing at Slate about ANSIRH’s Turnaway Study. For more, io9’s write up and the Global Turnaway Study’s Facebook page.

[NB: More people than just cis women need and want access to abortion care.]

Let's get real about abortions →

stfuhypocrisy:

“Rather than tell us what you’d like to ban, tell us please what you think government should do to support more happy and healthy childbearing, to reduce unwanted pregnancies and to alleviate the economic anxieties of mothers-to-be?”

(Source: stfueverything)

Latest Attack in the War on Women - Cutting Off WIC (a program that feeds low-income mothers and babies) funding from Planned Parenthood. →

brashblacknonbeliever:

thebearyscarypandaspensieve:

The Oklahoma State Department of Heath has just announced that it will end its WIC contract with the state’s Planned Parenthood affiliates, effectively cutting off the federal funding that the organization’s clinics rely on to provide health services to low-income women.

“We don’t like the idea of ‘killing babies.’  Therefore, we will cut off money for food for starving babies.” - Republican logic.

And now I want to burn things.

(Source: skeptikhaleesi, via becauseiamawoman)

keepyourbsoutofmyuterus:

When I read things like this: “Just heard from a woman who turned off her electricity for two months so she’d have money to cover her abortion. Terrible.”, I am reminded of how people who pass the laws and put into place the regulations to limit or deny access to abortion probably have never in their life talked with someone who actually needed to get an abortion.

I am reminded that people who get abortions are, in fact, people. With lives. Living them every day.

I am reminded that having a choice does not mean being able to access that choice and that fighting for reproductive rights (or rather, having rights be your end goal) is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

We need the rights.

But I am reminded that rights are only a theory unless access to affordable, quality abortion care is a reality for every person no matter where they live or how much money they make. We have a LONG way to go.

"Too often, “pro-choice” talking points will center around people for whom access to services is more reliable, and for those with enough racial and class privilege to facilitate reproductive health care. What goes unspoken is that these are largely concerns for white ciswomen, and is regularly promoted at the expense of issues that communities of color, underserved populations, rural communities, and LGBTQ people face.

Even more disturbing is when these groups talk about “bringing reproductive rights” to these maligned groups as if they have not been primary concerns decades before national pro-choice politics dominated the spotlight. Sometimes these larger groups (and honestly, even smaller, community-based ones) will co-opt reproductive justice terminology in-name-only, and fail to embrace the intersectional tools that makes reproductive justice activism different from the “pro-choice” politics lauded in media and within the non-profit industrial complex. Reproductive Justice advocates regularly call for the de-centering of white politics and discourse so that other voices and concerns can get the attention, funds, and people-power they deserve across communities. I heartily recommend following Jessica Yee’s work (editor of the anthology Feminism for Real), which you can do on Twitter (@JessYee) on these issues."

Jen at OK4RJ in her post, “Reproductive Justice 101: Oklahoma Edition” (via keepyourbsoutofmyuterus)

Resources for Decision-Making and Low-Income Parenting

Health Care:

• 211.org can connect you to help with food, housing, employment, health care, counseling and more
• Scarleteen’s Find-A-Doc lets you search for doctors, counselors, shelters/centers, doulas, and other sexual/reproductive health services. You can also add or read reviews.
• Look over your insurance options at Healthcare.gov
• Your state’s Medicaid program
• The Affordable Care Act expands insurance and health care options for pregnant people and children, including the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). You can find local health care centers, services, and information on their page.
• Many Planned Parenthood locations provide general health care at little to no cost, depending on your income
• Nurse-Family Partnership offers free at-home (or another safe place) pregnancy and childcare assistance until your child turns two.
• NeedyMeds is a directory of programs that offer assistance to people who can’t afford their medications or health care.
• Free Dental Care can help you find low-cost or free clinics
• Look for dental and dental hygiene schools if you are comfortable with closely-supervised students
• Your state’s United Way program may sponsor or help you connect with low-cost or free dental care
• You can straight up ask for a discount at your doctor’s office. The Billfold’s How to Get Health Care While Uninsured has more on the topic.

• Women, Infants and Children (WIC) for food and health care services
• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
• Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP)
• If you’re a Native American living on or near a reservation, apply for Food Distribution on Indian Reservations (FDPIR)
• Find your local food bank

• Backline can connect you to parenting resources
• Your state’s Department of Human Services may have a program to provide low-income, working parents with access to quality, affordable child care
• The US Department of Health and Human Services sponsors the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) to both states and Native tribes
• eHow has a step-by-step guide to finding child care assistance through Child Care Aware
• Detroit’s Sew Up the Safety Net for Women and Children is a free program connecting women ages 18-34 to parenting support, counseling, baby health and care information, and other services and education
• You may be able to find parenting and home ec. classes, baby materials, social support, child care, and other resources through your place of worship
• Many diaper and formula companies offer free samples and opportunities to win packages or cash

Help for low-income parents?

I know of a lot of resources to help people access safe, legal abortion, but I’d like to find more for low-income parents or soon-to-be parents. One of the most commonly listed reasons for getting an abortion is financial strain. Someone who truly wants to be a parent deserves all the help they need. If anyone has any information on the following, whether it’s national, state, or local, and especially if it’s trans* friendly, please reblog or message me!

Financial assistance/providers for:

• Prenatal and postnatal care (including ultrasounds)
• Birth and alternative birthing options (homebirth, birthing centers, midwives, doulas, etc.)
• Infant care
• Baby items
• Child care for working/student parents
• Food
• Rent/utilities

Other:

• Parenting advice and support groups
• Home ec. and other practical classes (online or not)
• Resources for people in domestic violence situations
• Counseling and support for victims of abuse (pregnancy and birth can be triggers)
• Crisis pregnancy centers/pregnancy resource centers that provide nonjudgmental, no-strings-attached services
• Any other needs I’ve forgotten

Going to Mississippi: If I Don't, Who Will? →

After growing increasingly uncomfortable turning women away who needed abortion due to my feeling religiously-conflicted about providing them during my first 12 years as an ob-gyn, a sermon by Dr. Martin Luther King challenged me to a deeper spiritual understanding where compassion moved me to action on behalf of my patients. Similar to the defining quality of the Good Samaritan in Dr. King’s narrative of what made the Samaritan “good”, where the Samaritan reversed the question of concern to care more about the well-being of the person needing help than about what might happen to him for stopping to do so, my concern about women when there are no abortion services became more important to me than what might happen to me for providing the services.