UN Report Classifies Lack Of Access to Abortion as "Torture" →

stfuprolifers:

United Nations special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, came out with his yearly report on torture last month. This year’s report “focuses on certain forms of abuses in health-care settings that may cross a threshold of mistreatment that is tantamount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Among other things, Méndez specifically cites lack of access to abortion.

…

Last year, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Reproductive Rights, Anand Grover, broke major ground by demanding the removal, without delay, of all barriers with regard to reproductive access globally, as well as granted access to contraception. In his report, Grover declared denial of access to abortion as discriminatory. Coupled with the new report from the Special Rapporteur on Torture, women’s rights activists worldwide are cheering.

In his report, Méndez, too, holds that denial of reproductive justice is discrimination on the basis of gender and denial of that right can cause “tremendous and lasting physical and emotional suffering” to women. According to the Special Rapporteur’s report, such violations include:

Abusive treatment and humiliation in institutional settings; involuntary sterilization; denial of legally available health services such as abortion and post-abortion care; forced abortions and sterilizations; female genital mutilation; violations of medical secrecy and confidentiality in health-care settings, such as denunciations of women by medical personnel when evidence of illegal abortion is found; and the practice of attempting to obtain confessions as a condition of potentially life-saving medical treatment after abortion.

[Read more: click link]

[friendly reminder: not just a women’s issue]

So let’s talk reproductive justice.

homosnacktualmafiaqilf:

1.

I want so badly to talk about this picture.

I do.

But when your first thought about it is “support women”, I can’t.

I can feel the words inching away from the raw wounds that even if they scar will always hurt.

Does that seem right to you?

2.

I actively flinch from the word feminist. Because of a long list of reasons.

But the one I really want to talk about right now is the fact that they don’t think about my reproductive justice.

They don’t think about the reproductive justice that means that I and other people who could need birth control who aren’t women deserve to be included.

They don’t think about the reproductive justice that means that they need to support trans people’s rights not to have to be sterilized to get the basic right of being recognized as that person’s true gender/s,

They don’t think about the reproductive justice that means that they need to actively stop sterilization of trans people, of PoC, of disabled people.

They don’t think about the reproductive justice that means the right to accessible, free birth control for everyone.

Their reproductive justice is condoms, abortions, and birth control pills.

Does that seem right to you?

3.

My mother lovingly referred to all of her fetuses as parasites when she was pregnant with each of us. Each of us was unplanned. Each of us was loved.

Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about their mothers being people?

Does that seem right to you?

4.

What the fuck am I supposed to do if I am raped and I get pregnant?

What the fuck am I supposed to do?

This is not a rhetorical question.

What the fuck am I supposed to do?

And I ask because the answer is I don’t know. I was never told.

Does that seem right to you?

5.

Only publishing one narrative of abortion says a lot less about those people’s stories and a lot about the publisher.

The vast majority of abortion narratives are about how abortion is a necessary evil, and very few are about anything else.

Does that seem right to you?

6.

I want to talk about this picture, but for now, let’s talk about the fact that someone took  a gender-neutral picture with a powerful message and simplified it down to “support birth control and women’s rights”.

Why does this person not think that we—we people who are still using coat hangers and drinking paint thinner—don’t deserve to say “Never Again”?

Does that seem right to you?

7.

I want to talk about how a very common topic of discussion between disabled people is whether or not our parents would have aborted us if they had had early detection of our disabilities.

I know my mother would not have.

But why the fuck did I have to even ask?

Why the fuck did I even have to wonder?

Does that seem right to you?

8.

If you only ever talk about one form of justice, your justice is unjust.

And yet, that’s just supposed to suffice?

Does that seem right to you?

9.

I want everyone to have reproductive justice.

If you never consider us to be people, then you don’t think about what justice we deserve.

Most people never mention what kind of reproductive justice we deserve.

Does that seem right to you?

10.

I want my uterus out.

I want to not have ovaries.

I genuinely hope that I turn out to have a gene for estrogen-based cancers that runs on both sides of my blood, so I can have an early hysterectomy.

I genuinely hope that I have a higher chance of having my body grow fucking tumors—something that terrifies me on a visceral level because this has happened to both my grandmothers and my mother and I still have screaming, crying nightmares— because it’s probably the quickest way to get relief for the pain of having a cosmically wrong body.

Does that seem right to you?

11.

People call themselves “pro-choice” and then act as if it’s a dichotomous choice.

To abort or not abort, that is the question.

Does that seem right to you?

12.

I have to be afraid of being raped.

I have to be afraid of needing abortion.

But I also have to be afraid of people using that to mean that I know what women go through.

(I don’t. If you want to know what women go through, ask a woman. Ask especially the kind of woman that’s not often considered to be a ‘real’ woman.)

I have to be afraid of never being able to say “I was raped and I needed an abortion too” because then I won’t be a person anymore.

Does that seem right to you?

13.

I can’t stand menstruating. I can’t. It’s one of the few ways that I’m transnormative—a cafab trans person hating menstruation is very transnormative.

It’s worse than just the physical pain, the violent dysphoria, the disorienting sensation that comes from dissociating because I need to be numb sometimes. It’s worse because I remember that no matter what, I need to be afraid.

Does that seem right to you?

14.

One of the very first things someone said when I—self-deluding—told them I was a lesbian was “Oh, but you can use IVF and sperm donors!”

Because having a womb meant, to this person, that I should use it.

(I have fang teeth as well. Does that mean I should have used them to rip open her throat?)

Does that seem right to you?

15.

If you’re a cis woman, I want you to read this, now.

If you’re a cis feminist, I want you to read it twice.

If you’re a cis feminist who thinks they understand how trans people deserve reproductive justice, I want you to read it three times.

I want you to know that this person, one of your own, would rather I drink paint thinner and potentially die than get an abortion.

Does that seem right to you?

16.

“Never Again” is starting to look more and more like “Never Again For Us”.

Does that seem right to you?

17.

One of the reasons that I do not reblog posts on things like suicide and crisis hotlines is because cis people make these lists and cis people reblog them and I cannot trust that you checked this out properly.

I cannot trust that you ensured the safety of me and mine.

I cannot trust you, because too many times has something been advertised as being for me and mine as well and turned out to want us dead.

Does that seem right to you?

18.

When you call pro-fetus attitudes only misogynistic instead of being cruel, ableist, racist, classist, cissexist, violent, entitled, invasive, I wonder if you know what paint thinner tastes like.

When you pretend that pro-fetus people only hate cis white abled rich women, you say that you’re fine with a bloody coathanger and a half-empty bucket of paint thinner so long as it’s not in your sight.

Does that seem right to you?

19.

If I ever need to, I might just go to Planned Parenthood, clutching my mother and sister’s hands, crying.

I’ll cry when they misgender me.

I’ll cry until the dissociation overtakes the dysphoria and all I know is the ceiling.

And you will all call my tears collateral damage.

Does that seem right to you?

20.

The flip side of the feminism that won’t mention me needing justice is the feminism that says that all women need abortions.

The flip side of the feminism that would call my abortion a women’s experience and side with a rapist is the feminism that doesn’t care about trans women being raped—because, supposedly, trans women don’t need any reproductive justice.

Feminism hates women like nothing else, sometimes.

Does that seem right to you?

21.

This response is personal.

The political is personal.

This person and this person want me to drink paint thinner for the crime of not wanting a parasite.

Does that seem right to you?

22.

So, no, I’m not going to talk about that picture.

It might have been powerful until you destroyed it.

Never again?

We might never get to say “never again”.

Does that seem right to you?

(Source: imnotevilimjustwrittenthatway)

sore-eye-blurry-vision:

advocateforlife answered your question: Can someone who is Pro-Life answer me this?

Why use birth control? Why not get sterilized? Why even take the risk of having to go through an abortion.

I am 18. They will not do any sort of surgical sterilization on me. In my state you have to be 21 years old and have 3 kids for them to even think about approving your application. And even with a Tubal ligation proximately 2% of women get pregnant after wards. I will have to wait until my endimetriosis is bad enough for a doctor to tell me a hysterectomy would be the best option. 

And abortions are not risky. “Researchers found that women were about 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications of an abortion.” (SOURCE)

I don’t want to sound at all like I’m pressuring you to change your birth control usage, but would you be able to get Essure or its generic counterparts? It’s a non-surgical, permanent method with a failure rate of less than 1%. There’s an explanation with pictures here.

(Source: abbyboo-boo)

This “New” Form of Permanent Birth Control (Persons with Vaginas Permanent)

fuckyeahsexeducation:

foryoursexualinformation:

Okay so the other day (actually just yesterday), I was watching The Doctors. For those who might not know what it is about, basically it is four doctors who explore new stuff in the medical community and share it to the rest of the United States. Sometimes they get kind of outrageous in my opinion but this episode shared a form a birth control that I was unaware of. It is permanent and no cutting, not to invasive, no hormones, and no general anesthesia. At first I was like BS. B-friggen-S! But then they showed the animation and my mind was blown.

This is called Adiana. I have just been researching and looking up stuff about it and it looks super simple for permanent birth control for a woman. I say “new” because I have not heard of it yet and I guess it has been around for some years. I believe the official FDA approval was July 6th, 2009 but if someone can find other info on that, awesome!

The Adiana procedure uses two smaller-than-a-grain-of-rice-basically white inserts to be put into the fallopian tubes. Then over time (they say about three months) the fallopian tubes will create natural scar tissue over the inserts to block off the ovaries therefor blocking the chance for an egg and sperm to meet. This procedure is fairly simple and it does not have as long a recovery time as tubal ligation.

Here is the complete procedure:

Step 1: A slender, flexible instrument (delivery catheter) is passed through the body’s natural openings (i.e., through the vagina and cervix and into the uterus) to deliver a low level of radiofrequency energy (i.e., energy that generates heat to create a superficial lesion) to a small section of each fallopian tube.

Step 2: A tiny, soft insert - about the size of a grain of rice - is placed in each of your fallopian tubes, right where the energy was applied.

Step 3: You must use another form of birth control over the next 3 months, while new tissue grows in and around the Adiana inserts, eventually blocking your fallopian tubes.

Step 4: At 3 months, a special test is performed (hysterosalpingogram or HSG) to confirm that your tubes are fully blocked. This test will ensure that the procedure has been successful.

So I thought some people might be interested in learning a bit about alternatives to tubal ligation for persons with vaginas permanent birth control.

Another brand of this is Essure. I talked a little bit about both in my post about sterilization. It is technically a form of tubal ligation but it is a lot easier, practically no recovery time, and just as effective. It also does not effect periods.

(via rabbleprochoice)

The selective history of reproductive choice

mylifeasafeminista:

newwavefeminism:

feminismisprettycool:

newwavefeminism:

You can find books on books on books that detail and describe abortion and the history of contraceptives and how society constructed abortion as a women’s issue.

Eugenics and force sterilization of women of color and poor women, on the other hand, is glaringly silent in all of these…

If you’re interested in understanding this aspect of reproductive justice history in the United States, I’ve recently read three books about it and would recommend them:

Matters of Choice: Puerto Rican Women’s Struggle for Reproductive Freedom by Iris Lopez

Fertile Matters: The Politics of Mexican-Origin Women’s Reproduction by Elena R. Gutierrez

Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare by Johanna Schoen

Thanks for the titles!

I also recommend Pregnancy and Power and Beggars and Choosers by Rickie Solinger, as well as some sections in Color of Violence: The Incite! Anthology.

Great resource! I took a class with one of these women. I’ll definitely check her book out.

What is Trans* Repro Justice?

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

prolongedeyecontact:

transreprojustice:

A lot of people when they hear the terms “prochoice”, “reproductive rights” or even “reproductive justice” only think of abortion, but this view is myopic in my opinion. “Reproducing” encompasses many things which includes the right to choose to have children (or give birth and choose adoption), to choose to not have children right now, and to choose to never have children. Reproductive justice frameworks are holistic and look at reproductive rights with the whole person in mind. This means people also have the right to quality and comprehensive sex education, contraception, relevant medical care, the right to be sterilized and the right to not be forcibly sterilized, and a whole host of birthing choices as well (home/natural births, VBACs, the right to refuse c-sections, etc).

Not only that but reproductive rights activists are also concerned with advocating for the personhood/bodily integrity/and autonomy of pregnant people, advocating for reproductive health care as a human right, eradicating obstetric fistula and illegal/unsafe abortion in the developing world, lowering the incidence of teen pregnancy and STIs, lowering the mortality and morbidity rates of pregnant people, improving access to quality healthcare especially for people in poverty. The list goes on and on. Further, we must remember that race, class, disability status, citizenship status, gender, sexual orientation, etc all intersect and all have an effect on how we can or cannot utilize our reproductive rights, and therefore all of those issues must be addressed for reproductive justice to be successful in upholding the rights of all people not just those who are white, wealthy, able-bodied, straight, cis, male citizens. 

So what does this have to do with trans* people?

Well, perhaps not everyone within the movement believes “prochoice” should be a holistic philosophy, but I for one, do. We concentrate on abortion rights because that’s the issue so often under attack, but to be actually “prochoice” is much more expansive than that. It’s about bodily integrity and the importance of keeping personal bodily decisions just that, personal. It’s about birthing choices as much as it is abortion. It’s about how the reproductive rights of different segments of society have been effected differently and what that means to all of us as a whole. Intersectionality matters because poc, poor people, disabled people, trans* people, people of various sexual orientations have been targeted differently and yet it’s all part of a larger system that denies those seen as the “other” the freedom to make basic choices in regards to how their bodies are viewed and how they are utilized. Therefore it’s important to remember that the sexist and cissexist system that seeks to control the sexuality, bodies, and reproduction of those it perceives to be women is the same system that actively targets the identities, bodies, reproduction, and sexualities of trans* people. Reproductive rights aren’t about abortion, they’re about the profound and fundamental right to bodily integrity.

So what is trans* repro justice?

It’s the radical notion that:

• Our bodies belong to us and our right to bodily integrity doesn’t dissipate when society becomes aware of our trans*ness.
• Our bodies and identities are valid, no matter how “uncommon” they may be.
• Language matters and so does inclusivity. When your rhetoric excludes us so do your actions, and that sometimes literally kills us.
• We don’t need to be pathologized or “explained” within a cissexist paradigm. 
• You don’t need to understand us to respect us.
• Sex and gender are not neat binaries.
• We deserve to have our needs met and our boundaries respected just as much as anyone else.
• Medical care should be easily accessible to every one that needs and wants it.
• Parenthood and reproduction are basic human rights and no person should be sterilized without their consent or knowledge. In the other direction, all people that seek sterilization should be able to do so without jumping through hoops for paternalistic doctors.
• All of us have the right to information about our bodies, that doesn’t exclude or denigrate our identities or misgender us, to ensure we can maintain our health.
• All of us have a right to maintain our humanity, dignity, and health. This doesn’t change with citizen status or prisoner status.
• Intersectionality is important. Trans* activism must be cognizant of it, and willing to acknowledge the power hierarchies and systems of privilege within our own community.
• We all have the right to control our fertility how we see fit (whether through pregnancy, adoption, single parenthood, harvesting eggs, sperm banking, etc), and those services should be accessible and affordable.
• We are perfectly capable of being wonderful parents and raising amazing, well-adjusted children.
• Men can and do give birth. Not all those that give birth are mothers.
• Women can and do impregnate people. Not all those that impregnate are fathers.
• “Mothers” and “fathers” aren’t the only type of parents that exist.
• We have a right to obtain government issued identification documents that acknowledge our identities (even nonbinary ones!) without having to undergo costly surgery we may not even want.
• We shouldn’t have to conform to a coercive, gendered script for the comfort of cis people nor should we be expected to live or perform a typical trans* narrative to be taken seriously.
• We should be able to use public restrooms without being attacked, mocked, or arrested.
• Our identities and bodies shouldn’t be caricatured for the amusement of society.
• We are people. We are valid. We are here to stay.

This is a work in progress. Any additions are welcome!

Reblogging here so more people will see this and also to plug my new trans*-centered repro justice blog.

WONDERFUL!

(via keepyourbsoutofmyuterus)

Georgia Democrats to propose limitations on vasectomies for men →

tehsunshine:

historicalupstart:

As members of Georgia’s House of Representatives debate whether to prohibit abortions for women more than 20 weeks pregnant, House Democrats  planned to introduce their own reproductive rights plan: No more vasectomies that leave “thousands of children … deprived of birth.”

Suck on that.

(Source: sarahlee310, via lilithlaquim)

Reproductive issues does not only include abortion.

clatterandclank:

something that is seriously frustrating me right now is that the way abortion is constructed is that it is the total be-all end-all of reproductive issues. The mainstream rhetoric about this basically looks like this:

when actually it looks like this:

There are so many other issues involved in reproductive rights. Things like the ability of trans* parents, queer parents, parents of color, and poor parents to keep their children. Things like access to good and respectful birthing centers. Things like the sheer cost of birth and how that affects those who don’t have insurance. Things like that all of this incredibly complicated for undocumented immigrants.

Things like the utter lack of support for people (especially people of color, who are overly sexualized anyway) to breastfeed at the same time that breastfeeding is pushed down our throats as the only thing we could ever do if we love our kids. This results in a lot of people trying to breastfeed exclusively and doing it solely from the home, which - news alert!- reproduces the whole work/domestic gender dichotomy. 

Things like the utter inaccessibility of child care for anyone who is not super rich, but how the rest of us poor folks actually really need it because we are the ones working all the damn time. And you know, I think you can make links here to the disgusting disparities in public education, as well.

Things like the fact that people of color have been historically and systematically forcibly sterilized on the one hand, and on the other are vilified for ‘having too many kids’. That is eugenics, people. 

Constructing reproductive rights only as who has access to abortions - who is choosing not to be a parent - excludes so many of these issues. It also ties the whole notion of reproduction to biological abilities, which leads to oodles of cissexism. 

I am not saying abortion and birth control aren’t important - they are. they are incredibly important, and those battles definitely need to be fought, and waged, and won. But reproductive rights also includes the right to reproduce and parent, as well, and those are battles being fought and waged and lost by queer people, people of color, and poor people. I want to see that included in mainstream feminist dialogue along with abortion. 

(I totally made those graphics myself because I love diagrams)

(via brashblacknonbeliever)

Dr. King Supported Margaret Sanger & Planned Parenthood, Why Won't You? →

prolongedeyecontact:

Excerpt:

Let’s be clear: There is flagrant hypocrisy tainting the GOP’s assault on Planned Parenthood. They accuse Planned Parenthood of eugenics, while simultaneously flooding their proposed policies with the same. The dysgenic nature of our healthcare, welfare, and tax system—which prolongs the lives of those marginalized groups in society who would otherwise fall victim to natural selection—leads Conservatives to attempt to implement eugenics into a capitalist system. There have been studies proving that an improvement in the quality of healthcare, nutrition, and public social services, directly increases population growth; yet these are the very programs that conservatives would like to see stripped from the budget. By removing them, they successfully blur the lines between church and state, strip women of their reproductive rights based on nothing more than religious conjecture, and deceptively facilitate the genocide they attempt to blame on Planned Parenthood.

I just want to add that I find it incredibly hypocritical and disturbing that antichoicers cling to Sanger’s eugenicist past (which has nothing to do with the Planned Parenthood of today) while they propose policies of eugenics right now.

[TW]

• Paying Poor Women For Sterilization
• An Intersectional, Reproductive Justice Feminist Response to LaBruzzo’s Sterilization Plan
• CRACK Comes to Kansas
• Prosecuting Pregnant Drug-Addicted Mothers
• Organization Pays Addicted Women To Undergo Permanent Sterilization
• Sterilized For Being Poor?
• Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer Compares Poor People to Stray Animals That Shouldn’t Be Fed Because They’ll Breed.
• Lawmaker Advocates Eugenics
• Nita Lowey Rival Wrote Anti-Integration, Racially Charged Essay

And of course all of this is merely a continuation of the “welfare queen” stereotype created and perpetuated by Republicans; a party whose platform is built on racism, classism, and sexism.

• Fit To Be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950-1980
• Also an old post of mine for more forced sterilization links

(Source: brettakins)

Victims speak out about North Carolina sterilization program →

jessicavalenti:

Horrifying details and powerful stories from the women sterilized by North Carolina eugenics program.

Elaine Riddick was 13 years old when she got pregnant after being raped by a neighbor in Winfall, N.C., in 1967. The state ordered that immediately after giving birth, she should be sterilized. Doctors cut and tied off her fallopian tubes. “I have to carry these scars with me. I have to live with this for the rest of my life,” she said.

Getting Some Nuance Up In Your Reproductive Rights

prolongedeyecontact:

Reproductive rights is a dominant social issue in the United States right now. No wonder, with an ongoing onslaught against it from almost all political quarters, between the GOP’s straight up attempts to make it impossible to access any kind of reproductive health services to pro-life Democrats. Yet, the discussion of reproductive rights seen in most dominant spaces focuses on a very narrow framework and world view, and is less about full access to reproductive rights and justice than it is about a very specific issue: abortion.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a huge fan of abortion access, I think it should be safe, legal, and readily accessible for everybody. But abortion is not the only issue at stake here, and it is critical to be talking about reproductive rights as a whole framework, not a single issue.

Three key things to take away: Reproductive rights is not just about women. Reproductive rights is not just about abortion. Reproductive rights has tremendous intersections with race, class, sexuality, and disability.

Read More

If you aren’t following prolongedeyecontact by now, you should be. Their blog is full of awesome essays and information on reproductive rights, feminism, and rape culture.

Dooo iiiiit.

youarenotyou:

leraje:

bunnygamer:

People are always advocating the spaying and neutering of animals to prevent overpopulation. Why does this same logic not apply to humans? There are going to be 7 billion people on this planet soon. I understand that most people have some sort of biological drive to reproduce, but we do not need (nor can the planet support) any more people. I get it, your kids would be cute. But put your selfish narcissism aside, and stop reproducing. Please.

whoah there! i know that you live in america, where having children is more of a choice than a requirement, but it’s not like that everywhere. in many impoverished areas, children are a vital resource for so many reasons. one, in order to be taken care of when you grow older, you need to have children. they are your social security. two, children are extra wage earners for the family. three, women can gain power through the amount of children they have (and power is hard to come by for most women in these areas). children are pretty much a security net. it’s not selfish narcissism. 

i really hate attacks on “overpopulation”, because the highest growing populations are in impoverished countries. the scare about overpopulation from 1st world sources directly attacks those people whose situation is caused by 1st world decisions. this attitude has been reflected through so many attempts by 1st world countries to sterilize the people of other countries instead of looking at why overpopulation is a problem. overpopulation is a problem because people use up lots of resources, and the people who do that the most are 1st worlders. if your aim in stopping overpopulation is to conserve resources, calling for sterilization doesn’t do shit. it needs to focus on the main consumers, not the smallest ones.

this.

(via youarenotyou-deactivated2012022)

Help me understand something, here.

ladyislingering:

Why is it that men can undergo voluntary sterilization without first having to father at least two children, whereas women cannot be voluntarily sterilized (in my case, full-force - I’d like to get rid of my uterus) without having birthed at least one child? (Feel free to correct me if this is incorrect, but this is something pointed out to me by someone I deem as knowledgeable.)

Why does the government feel as if a man is “stable” enough to make such a decision, because he is not fickle-minded as they believe a woman to be? Why is it that a woman cannot decide for herself, what she wants to do within her reproductive life?

When will women be able to be taken seriously? I have firmly decided I don’t plan on having any children. My husband-to-be is already a father of a child whom is not mine (and will never be my responsibility, as the mother of this child is a wonderful mother herself, and will never have an excuse to pass the child, who also has a brother from another father, down to his father or myself) and has decided that he doesn’t want to have any more of his own either.

This isn’t something I just recently came up with. This isn’t just a one-off decision or a case of being “young and naive” or not knowing what I want to do with my life. This isn’t a case of a young woman who is incapable of making decisions of her own, and this isn’t a case in which the government should be able to have any say in what goes on with my body.

And yet I cannot have this operation to rid myself of the agony of a menstrual cycle and risk of unwanted children (before anyone gets up on their soapbox I’d also like to mention that I would never have unprotected sex, but sometimes accidents do happen) because I am a woman, and the government figures my opinion and my convictions do not hold as much weight as that of a man’s.

Will someone please explain this to me? Because I’m having a hell of a time trying to figure out why we’ve brought to light the way the government tries to regulate abortion (a woman’s right to choose) but the issue of voluntary hysterectomy/voluntary sterilization to any degree is rarely spoken of, when it comes to childless women who choose to remain childless. Why are we not pushing for equality in both departments?

Who will help us rise above this seemingly Catholic-bent morale that one must “be fruitful and multiply” to be a “normal”, functioning member of society and to be able to choose what’s right for OUR individual bodies? When will the government realize that their morals and their views on reproductive health are not a “one size fits all” blanket of ultimate truth and justice?

When will the government get the fuck out of my uterus?

Being Pro-Choice

Being pro-choice means more than supporting the right to an abortion. Being pro-choice encompasses all reproductive decisions, from contraception, to sterilization, to IVF, to adoption and surrogacy. It means supporting and respecting people’s choices of where and how to give birth, or whether to give birth at all.

It means acknowledging the variety of life experiences, and working to break down barriers, such as poverty, location, and lack of education, that impede people’s right to control their reproductive destinies. It means working to ensure that no matter what sexual orientation or identity, everyone has equal access to support for their choices.

It means understanding that many are not given choices, or that their choices are limited by their situation. It means helping those people in any way, from offering them a ride to the hospital, to lobbying for their rights in the capitol or online.

It means fighting for everyone’s rights before, during, and after pregnancy, as well as the rights of those who will never be pregnant.

A list of doctors that will sterilize patients under age 30 →

(Source: rabbleprochoice)