Did anyone watch Frontline last night re: abortion? Shocking!

I had no idea how reproductive rights have been chipped away at over the years since the Casey decision. Did you know that the rightie legislation in Mississippi has managed to knock off ALL BUT ONE abortion clinic in the entire state?

And the one clinic left? If they don't meet 39 pages of newly created regulations that they MUST have the same set up as a surgical and ambulatory facility, the services they provide will be greatly reduced. It means they have to have stupid shit like walls no narrower than 6 feet, etc...

I was shocked. I always thought Row v Wade would never get overturned, and it probably won't, but it doesn't matter....the plan on the right is to reduce access to abortion so much at the state level that it's practically impossible for some women to access. Plus, often these same state legislators don't want public monies spent on making birth control accessible either. Anyways in many "red" states...

First - you have to have a waiting period - anywhere from 24 - 72 hours. That means once you've chosen to have an abortion and you go in for an appointment, you are forced to wait at least another day before you can have the procedure. More often than not it's 48 hours.

Second - you have to give "informed consent". In some states that means you are forced to have a sonogram and listen to the baby's heartbeat.

Third - Parental notification if under age

Fourth - They have cut off all public monies for abortion services so the poorest of the poor cannot afford it and get no assistance in this regard. If you're rich you just go have a d and c I guess...

If you have time you can watch the episode online...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/clinic/

But thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention!

I knew that if I watched it, I'd be ranting and raving for days. Given my stress level lately, that's not a good idea. I'm just disgusted that anyone who claims to care about people would do this kind of chipping away of rights. They're so worried about the baby that they forget about the mother, the father, and the whole community.

the babies. On Salon, the reviewer talked about crisis pregnancy centers that offer all kinds of advice and maybe some diapers and bottles, but NO pre-natal medical care.

Sadly, I just don't think enough people who don't already know this stuff will see this program.

Really, why the hell not????

I call them pro-fetus. They don't care about children or the mother. If they did they would have national health care. They have to have doctor visit's and updates for the baby, the birth of the baby, diapers, food, clothes, beds etc. Things like that. As the old saying goes: it's the economy stupid.

There are many crisis pregnancy centers around us (RW-land here in Western Michigan), and they offer quite a bit. More help is available from local churches as well.

The pro-lifers I know make tons of baby clothes and donate tons of time and money to help women in dire straights. One I know has literally made over a hundred sets of hats and mittens for poor and homeless students at one of the area's elementary schools. Yes, there are many who don't and just yell about it and take away women's rights, but they don't speak for the whole movement.

Children? It's easy to knit.

The one friend I know who's really pro-life did. She and her husband fostered eight kids in addition to their birth daughter, adopting the last one and are practically raising their youngest's two babies, as the youngest is special needs and is having trouble coping with real life on her own all that well.

Btw, you should see how much she knits, crochets, and sews for charity. I don't know anyone who is her equal, and that's saying something, considering how many knitters I know. You say it's easy to knit, but it makes me wonder if you do knit and could knit hundreds of charity items a year.

There really are pro-life people out there who do adopt, who do give tons of money and time, who do foster, who do put their money and their lives where their mouths are.

They visited one county where 75% of the women gives birth before the age of 20.

This state has a "choose life" tag with funds rasied from its sale going to crisis pregnancy centers that do not offer prenatal care. Mittens and hats are great, but a baby born prematurely needs a hell of a lot more than knitted items.

One mom I talked to said that her son, eighteen weeks early, cost two million dollars all told. United Way helped with much of the cost, but that was just the beginning.

I just can't understand why they wouldn't provide pre-natal care. Honestly, that's just stupid. There are a million studies out there on how pre-natal care more than pays for itself, and if they're having that many babies with moms that young, the risks are even higher.

Btw, you can't buy preemie clothes for most preemies. The handmade items at least keep them warm until they're big enough for the storebought clothes. One charity I deal with takes booties with the sole length of one inch--and those are often too big. It's not that the babies don't need more than clothes and all, but they do need them. The little ones shouldn't lie in the isolettes or go home with nothing.

those of us on the pro choice side have been quietly getting our asses kicked for several years. Roe v Wade is irrelavant as long as Casy provides for states to do whatever the hell they want - and they are.

Women in Mississippi have to travel 200+ miles out of state and becasue of the waiting period, go back again the next damn day. If that's not an undue burdon, I don't know what is?

:kick:

Alito gets confirmed it is all over. Some people state that states will take it upon themselves to offer abortions. Don't count on it. These people view abortion as murder and after Roe v. Wade is reversed that will be the next step. To outlaw abortion forever on the grounds of murder. It will get ugly.

:\ :( And what if it's a life-death issue with the mother and her pregnancy and to keep her life she has to abort? Would she got to jail? And how long would she go to jail? What if she has other children that need to be raised?

Do the words "God's will" mean anything to you?

The fundies will say it's "God's will" if you become one of the two percent of all pregnant women whose pregnancies go ectopic. The fundies will say it's "God's will" if the fetus dies and goes septic.

Here's what's gonna happen: Get a map and color Washington, Oregon, California, and all of New England green. Color the rest of the country--yes, including New York--red. If you don't live in a green state, you won't have access to abortion for any reason unless you can afford to travel either to a green state or to Europe. (Or unless you have one of those discreet family physicians who will "extract your menses.")

and unattainable for clinics to operate.

people think the "right to choice" is secure. It's very shocking, as it was to me when I started looking into it.

I didn't know that two democrats are anti-choice and my governor is mixed. At least here in Tn we have the state constiution that protects us.

The only positive I can come up with on this is maybe the sheeple will catch on and vote with their $ and their feet and leave these backward shit-holes. :shrug:

I wouldn't count on it. If anything it'll energize them more and show them how close they are to their goal. *sigh* It really is depressing.

is problematic for most people these days with the job market being as sucky as it is.

Leaving a place where you have friends and family to move somewhere where you don't know a living soul is a big risk.

Of course if a person has contacts already in the new location that's a different matter.

far and how quickly we've fallen.

Sorry if I sound so freaked out, but I thought I was pretty on top of things. Jesus!

From getting laws passed allowing pharmacists to refuse to provide birth control and emergency contracpetion ( and who wants to bet their next target is to allow clerks to refuse to sell condoms ) to creating so many stupid rules that they drive women's health clinics out of business. It is all part of their plan. All the while the majority of them are not supporting things that would increase the chance that women would *want* to have more kids like a living wage, affordable healthcare, affordable higher education, etc. If the pro-life groups put their full political clout behind measures like that imagine what it would do for our country considering the pro-choice people want the those things already!

THE WAR ON WOMEN IS GOING WELL....!!!

And did you see that now The Labor Department is no longer including WOMEN in their Bureau of Statistics!!! That's right....we are now invisible in the work force.

And the MSM keeps it all VERY QUIET....don't want to bother the little ladies with such bad news.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Making things unavailable or not usable is trademark Republican strategy. EG -
1)social security will fail in the future because our government can't redeem it's bonds
2) Public schools will fail due to lack of money as local governments scramble to pay mandates from the feds.
3) Medicaid will fail etc.......

See everything is there, it just can't be used. This has been their covert policy for 30 years. Let's try a couple more:

4) Clean air - will revert to the states and lawsuits will have to be won against individual states.
5) National parks - revert to states who can sell timber, open up hunting or allow mining or drilling to get money to pay for mandates.

and I couldn't bear to watch it. If I had watched it, I would have been up all night in a state of rage.

God, I hate those people. It's not about the sanctity of life or even cute little babies. It's about control.

eom

the last half. these people are smart, they are well funded, they are relentless, and they have elected officials who will gleefully pass any law they can come up with to handicap abortion rights.

they're going to win. abortions will be available only in large blue cities, and even there it will be under constant assault from protests. only when illegal abortions begin again, and women start dying, will any of those who enable the religiously insane to do this full-time begin to question their actions.

its too late, but pro choice forces need to take the issue to the protestors. follow their legislators home & demonstrate outside their houses. scream at them. pray from the bible back at them. boycott businesses that fund right to life organizations.

Interesting thing I found in following links, though.

So much for the theory of the utterly "right wing" south.

Idaho
Governor Dirk Kempthorne (R) is anti-choice.
Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch (R) is anti-choice.
Attorney General Lawrence Wasden's (R) position on choice is unknown.

North Carolina
Governor Mike Easley (D) is pro-choice.
Lieutenant Governor Beverly Perdue (D) is pro-choice.
Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) is pro-choice.

Vermont
Executives
Governor Jim Douglas (R) is mixed-choice.
Lieutenant Governor Brian Dubie (R) is anti-choice.
Attorney General William H. Sorrell (D) is pro-choice.

I found that information interesting, having come from a long line of southern liberals.

:shrug:

In other words, they're against it unless the sex wasn't consensual. If it was, then of course, the whore of Babylon should be forced to give birth. :eyes:

old days. Women have been aborting themselves since the beginning of time. Sadly, some will die, but many will manage just fine. The bottom line is to get the safest do-it-yourself methods out to women so that no one will have to rely on clinics in case they finally do shut them all down.

I heard of an organization of Doctors training nurses to do abortion if in fact it became illegal. This was in the state of Kansas.

to train women to assist in home abortions,using very simple equipment that is available everywhere.

With the power of the internet, I hope we see a Moveon type organization that will provide "rescue" to ferry women wherever it is necessary to have an abortion if they need it and also help provide funds.

I have donated to Planned Parenthood for 25 years and plan to put them in my will, along with the animal shelter.

THEN DON'T FRIGGING HAVE ONE. Why can't that be enough...

Women do have to have abortions sometimes. Rape, incest, medical issue etc. *sigh* During Clinton's terms abortion was low and in Bush's first term abortion went up 20%. There is a great article about this at sojo.net

They're like a cult. That's their entire voting issue. And look who's usually at the front in a tailored suit leading them all - MEN! Insecure men who can't handle women having any type of control over their lives.

The P.P. in our town has protesters once a week and the women are all of a certain faith where they can't wear pants - they're out in the blizzards holding those God awful signs.

http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/women/html/wh_000400_abortionself.htm

Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History

Abortion Self-Help Movement

The abortion self-help movement has spanned more than twenty-five years. Its early perspective was influenced heavily by repressive abortion laws, in particular the 1967 California Therapeutic Abortion Act, which stated that abortion was available only in an accredited hospital, only up to twenty weeks, and was subject to approval by a panel of doctors. Women's access to abortion was also severely limited by class, race, and age. Although adult white women with money could obtain abortion (the painful dilation and curettage), young women, poor women, and women of color—those women with least access to institutional medical care—were often forced to turn to illegal abortionists or self-induced abortions.

California women suffered under the restrictions of the Therapeutic Abortion Act. After observing abortions being performed at a local illegal clinic that used a new, less traumatic method utilizing suction to extract the contents of the uterus through a plastic tube attached to a syringe, some decided to learn to do abortions themselves.

The first "self-help clinic" meeting took place in Los Angeles on April 7, 1971. The leaders, including this author, shared information about nontraumatic suction abortion and self-abortion methods and also demonstrated vaginal self-examination using a speculum, mirror, and light. One attendee, Lorraine Rothman, returned to the next meeting with the prototype of a device called the Del'em that made it possible for women with minimal training to perform either menstrual extraction or early abortion. After observation, training, and improvements in the Del'em, the small group successfully performed early abortions and menstrual extractions in private homes.

Starting in 1970, these women traveled around the country to hold "self-help clinic" meetings, sharing information about vaginal self-examination, menstrual extraction, and improved abortion methods. The response was overwhelming. Self-help clinic groups sprung up in their wake. When abortion became legal in January, 1973, some of these groups formed the nuclei of women-controlled abortion clinics.

The collective, which became formally organized as the Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers, studied the history of abortion and birth control and learned about population control. The philosophy of the population control movement rested on three assumptions. First, rapid population growth in developing countries is the cause of hunger, disease, and underdevelopment. Second, women cannot be trusted to use birth control and abortion and so should be sterilized, whether or not they want to be. Third, without Western intervention, the Third World will not be able to stabilize its birthrate.

At first the population control movement took approving notice of the self-help movement. The Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers was tentatively approached by foundations about grants for research into menstrual extraction. But women in the self-help movement refused to participate in any program that forced sterilization on women of color while simultaneously espousing support of women's reproductive rights.

Carol Downer

See also Abortion; Women's Health Movement.

the self-abortion movement now??? Why isn't it operating in these states NOW????

It takes 3-5 minutes and is quite safe if a nurse trained in it does it.

...an issue such as this one to hit home with republicans before they understand WHY it is not a good idea to try to force their morality on everyone else.

If abortions are outlawed, it will take a few Republicans finding their daughter dead from a back alley abortion - the result of a pregnancy they didn't even know about because the daughter was too ashamed to tell anyone - before they will begin to question the wisdom of their morality laws.

Sadly though, some of them would still rather lose both their daughter and her fetus than admit they were wrong.

When well-to-do women/girls have a "problem", they are sent on a shopping trip abroad, or they have their "appendix" out. With modern laproscopic techniques of today, they don;t even have to actually remove the appendix, for the scar, anymore :evilgrin:

will always have access to abortion services. They will go to Canada or Europe for a little "trip."

for "menstrual abnormalities" just like they did in the good old days. Only the rich need ask.

rights since Roe v Wade. There are now only two abortion clinics in all of Missouri.

Also, many of the doctors who perform abortions are aging and they are not being replaced by new physicians. I don't think there are many newly minted OB/Gyn physicians who are learning the procedure as well. Part of it may be due to malpractice risks but I suspect it is due to politics and fear.

is that there are people who think of themselves as basically pro-choice who have kept themselves so poorly informed over lo these many years (at least since the early 1980s when the backlash began in earnest) that any of what you posted is news to them.

HEY, nominate this thread to the front page, please!!

have to. Casey provides the work around. I still can't get over it. Kick this up guys and get the word out...one abortion clinic left in mississippi!

when I was a young doctor training in the sixties, I was the only woman in my medical school. Men doctors ruled and men didn't get pregnant. Now over half the doctors, most of the nurses and nurse-practitioners and vets are women and a lot of us will help. Ob-Gyn is not my specialty but I know how to do an abortion and I will provide services as needed and train others as needed if the time comes. I will not provide for fundies and believe me, they want them, too but I am just not that altruistic.

... rant deleted.

That's a MUST SEE documentary, imho.

Thanks, Frontline.

I blame the corporate media for only spinning abortion as murder. I mean, it's one thing for the fundies to spew that, but it's another thing for people like Ralph Reed to become famous because the CM interviewed him and his minions ad infinitum. Meanwhile, a million people take to the streets of DC in April '04 and there's hardly a mention on TV. :grr:

who do have abortions. I'll bet it's higher than you'd think.

http://www.third-way.com/products/the_demographics_of_abortion.pdf

The average woman getting an abortion is 24, unwed, already a mother, and Christian.

Here's an interesting article I posted a few weeks ago from foxnews of all places, on abortion

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,173332,00.html

"The study found that “the average woman who seeks an abortion is 24 years old, unwed, earns a yearly income of about $25,000 and already is a mother…She has religious beliefs and is a Christian…the typical abortion is performed around the eighth week — well within the first trimester.”

There are two remarkable findings buried in this study. Again quoting, “The social conservatives’ focus on so-called 'partial-birth abortion' affects, at most, eight of every 10,000 abortions performed. The social liberals’ traditional defense of abortion on the grounds of rape and incest or the life of the mother is irrelevant in approximately 98 of every 100 abortions.”

I just learned about this group, Abortion Access Project, from a really interesting article on Salon about a woman in NYC who hosts out of town women who have come to the city for abortions because they weren't able to get one in their home state. It's a national network that's working to increase abortion access and services, train new abortion providers and raise public awareness. The thing that I really like about it is that it acts as a network across Access projects in all States, meaning you can learn more about what you can do locally. And you don't have to have a lot of extra cash to help out.

In other good news for reproductive choice, http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/11/07/e_c/index.html">Dr. Pill to the rescue is another really interesting article about a doctor who is issuing prescriptions for Plan B emergency contraception over the web. It's encouraging to read this stuff, because some people are doing real, on the ground work, to make sure that women are able to make the choices that they want to make.

I'd read about the on line doc but not about the access project.

Thank heavens for smart sistahs.

:kick:

the procedure and if your in PA, spousal notification.

Not to mention allowing people to scream at woman as they go in to make a difficult choice about their lives.

This is why I support PBS. They also aired a program (Independent Lens, I think) about a military family who lost their son/husband in the Iraq war. Amazing.

This is why I am having a hard time supporting Bob Casey,Jr. in the PA senate race. This is not an issue I'm willing to concede. It made me sick with rage to hear that woman standing outside the clinic saying "I want to live, mama ... it's going to hurt" in a child's voice, to the women entering the clinic. So falsely righteous and presumptuous.

against Santorum...but the Democratic Party yanked her..I think her first name was Betty? Really pissed me off. I couldn't work for an anti-choice dem....I guess I would be forced to hold my nose and vote for him compared to Santorum...but I am pretty pissed at the Dems for shit like this.

From what I understand, she just might be up for lieutenant gov ...? Rumor also had it that she was to run for congress, but that didn't pan out. I'm sure the powers that be have plans for her. There is even a site for those who supported her, and continue in spite of the DSCC:

http://www.runbarbararun.com/

Perhaps they were pressured by the fundies. I'll watch it online though, right after I call my PBS station and see if they are actually supporting censorship. :(

I find it so ironic that many of these anti choicers are more in lock step with limbaugh and hannity than thier own church.