I was advised, after I returned home, to take my RU-486 packet and take it easy for the next day or so. I experienced the regular symptoms of inducing an abortion—nausea, vomiting, abdominal discomfort, etc. Due to prolonged symptoms, I had to call into work and was told to put in my two weeks’ notice since my manager did not agree with me taking off work for having an abortion.

Not only was I asked to put in my two weeks at a place I dedicated three years of my life to, but prior to that, I was asked to bring in paperwork from Planned Parenthood to prove that I had an abortion. I ultimately think this was done to humiliate me. Now I had to wait to physically heal, and then immediately hit the pavement to find a new job.

I look back at that situation with anger, like, I’m sure, many women—single mothers, poor women, marginalized women—who are fired from their jobs because they had to take off work to have an abortion. Not only is this procedure expensive, but having to miss days of work and possibly pay for travel expenses and hotel costs if there is not a clinic within the surrounding area is not financially feasible for working-class women.

We live in a society that has pushed abortion under the rug, separating it from every other medical procedure, and silencing those who have experienced it. I am ready to pull it out from under the rug and make abortion accessible for all.

The GOP claims to be adamantly against using Medicaid dollars to help poor women obtain an abortion because of their deep commitment to the “sanctity of life.” Yet this is the same party which pushed a bill through the House of Representatives in 1995 to enable Medicaid recipients to obtain physician-assisted suicide services as a “cost-saving” measure … As one conservative advocate put it at the time, “Sick people are expensive. The dead are a burden on no one.”

WTF. Obama has proven to be an absolute enemy of the movement for women’s reproductive freedom; from approving anti-abortion amendments in his health reform bill, to blocking access to the morning-after pill. he talks a big game at planned parenthood-sponsored events & galas, but talk is cheap. his actions speak louder.

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The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it would appeal a federal judge’s order to make the most common morning-after contraceptive available without a prescription for girls and women of all ages.

The announcement came a day after the Food and Drug Administration said that one well-known morning-after pill, Plan B One-Step, would be made available without a prescription for girls as young as 15 — instead of only to girls ages 17 and over, as has been the case.

The Justice Department’s action will not affect that F.D.A. decision. Rather, the department is seeking to overturn a much broader order by the judge that removed restrictions for all ages and for generic versions of the pill, not just Plan B One-Step. The order, issued on April 5 by Judge Edward R. Korman of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, gave the F.D.A. 30 days to comply.

On Wednesday, the Justice Department also asked Judge Korman to stay his order pending the results of the appeal.

In his ruling, Judge Korman said the Obama administration had put politics before science in restricting access to the drug. The Justice Department’s decision to appeal was most likely based not only on the substance of that ruling, but also on the precedent it would set in countermanding an order by a White House cabinet member, Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services.

In 2011, Ms. Sebelius decided that the pill should be available without a prescription only to girls and women 17 and older, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s finding that it was safe and effective and should be available without any age restrictions. Ms. Sebelius said the pill had not been studied for safety in girls as young as 11. It was the first time a cabinet secretary had publicly overruled the F.D.A.

 … In March, Arkansas banned abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy. At the time it was passed, the legislation set the earliest ban of any state in the country.

Like so many of the hundreds of restrictions imposed over the last two years on women’s access to reproductive health care, the 12-week ban will only harm the most vulnerable people.

Around 88 percent of abortions are obtained in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy—most women who seek later abortions have either encountered a medical complication; are young and may have difficulty fulfilling parental consent requirements; or are poor and have struggled to raise the funds for a procedure that costs, on average, $400 to $500. The latter predicament could become even more common as Barack Obama’s health care law takes effect—with provisions authored by Democrats that require insurance providers to drop abortion coverage from various plans.

But Arkansas’ anti-choice legislators have already fallen behind. This month, North Dakota passed the most severe restrictions of all, banning abortions just six weeks after a pregnancy begins—sooner than many women even realize that they are pregnant! Gov. Jack Dalrymple admits he hopes signing the bill into law will provoke lawsuits that directly challenge Roe.

 … BILLS TO chip away at abortion access are nothing new. But the Arkansas and North Dakota measures indicate that we’ve reached a new stage, where right wing feels confident to challenge Roe outright.

And the right has the Democrats to thank for it. The debate on health care reform in 2009 and 2010 helped open the floodgates for series of anti-abortion attacks.

It was Democrats Bart Stupak and Ben Nelson who demanded that the health care bill include barriers to abortion access in insurance policies offered through the state-level exchanges set up under the legislation. They insisted on a center-stage national debate on exactly how much to limit women’s ability to make fundamental choices about our own lives and bodies.

And it was Democrats championed by liberals, such as Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama, who traded away women’s rights in order to get the health care bill passed—even though it will only further enrich medical, insurance and pharmaceutical corporations without substantially improving health care for working and poor people.

The subsequent slew of anti-choice measures has been far-reaching enough to demonstrate to millions of people that the anti-abortion right isn’t out to save unborn babies, but to roll back women’s rights.

Polls are beginning to show a rebound in support for women’s reproductive rights. Today, 60 percent of people agree with the statement that abortion should remain legal. That’s a positive development after years of retreat, in which liberal forces like Planned Parenthood have refused to lead a fight to defend abortion.

But we need an organized and vocal movement to go much further and turn the tide. Struggle in the streets forced a Supreme Court packed with Republican appointees to legalize abortion in 1973. Only a return to the streets can ensure that Roe v. Wade survives the right wing’s war on women.

Maybe this is too economic-reductionist, but what are the connections between the growing ruling class offensive against abortions, and the current changes in the capitalist system (i.e., austerity, lowering working-class wages and living standards, etc), which have attended the recent global economic crisis?

Is it simply that a larger pool of human workers that exist in a given country has the effect of depressing wages and bargaining power owing to the fact that the labor supply far outstrips demand, expanding the reserve army of the unemployed, and therefore gives more power to the capitalist class in its quest to resolve the crisis by increasing profitability through the suppression of wages (i.e., labor costs)?

The American ruling class — through the medium of anti-abortion Democrats, Republicans, a compliant media, and bigoted capitalist/financial activists — are turning women’s bodies into an absolute battle-ground in the war to redefine gender roles, the sexual division of labor, and the relative power enjoyed by women in the political, social, and economic arenas overall.

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In the first quarter of 2013, states have proposed 694 provisions related to a woman’s body, how she gets pregnant, or how she chooses to end that pregnancy.

A new report released on Thursday by the Guttmacher Institute takes a comprehensive look at how the War on Women has continued past the election cycle and into 2013. It shows that the new legislatures across the country are still very much dedicated to restricting sex education, availability of medication, and abortion access for women. Indeed, 47 percent of the 694 provisions were directly related to abortion:

“During the first three months of 2013, legislators in 14 states introduced provisions seeking to ban abortion prior to viability. These bans fall into three categories: measures that would prohibit all abortions, those that would ban abortions after a specified point during the first trimester of pregnancy and those that would block abortions at 20 weeks after fertilization (the equivalent of 22 weeks after the woman’s last menstrual period, the conventional method physicians use to measure pregnancy). All of these proposals are in direct violation of U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

“Legislators in 10 states have introduced proposals that would ban all, or nearly all, abortions. In eight states (AL, IA, MS, ND, OK, SC, VA and WA), legislators have proposed defining “personhood” as beginning at conception; if adopted, these measures would ban most, if not all, abortions.”

Seven states are edging closer to achieving full approval for laws that would reduce or essentially eliminate abortion access.

Fascinating. First issue of the newspaper started by Margaret Sanger in 1914, “The Woman Rebel.” The masthead reads, “No Gods No Masters.”

It states:

“The aim of this paper will be to stimulate working women to think for themselves and to build up a conscious fighting character.

” … It is also the aim of this paper to circulate among those women who work in prostitution; to voice their wrongs; to expose the police persecution which hovers over them and to give free expression to their thoughts, hopes and opinions.

“And at all times the WOMAN REBEL will strenuously advocate economic emancipation.

” … Superstition; blind following; unthinking obedience on the part of working women; together with the pretence, hypocrisy and sham morality of the women of the middle class have been the greatest obstacles in the obtaining of woman’s freedom.

“Every change in social life is accomplished only by a struggle. Rebel women of the world must fight for the freedom to harmonize their actions with the natural desires of their being, for their deeds are but the concrete expressions of their thoughts.”

Matt Bors on North Dakota’s Anti-Abortion Law | Alternet

Wow. The NYTimes has provided us with a perfect illustration of how “respectable,” “pragmatic,” bourgeois liberalism can lead people to become more afraid of victory through social war than defeat through social peace. It is time to revisit the famous Martin Luther King, Jr, essay, “Why We Can’t Wait.”

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MILLIONS OF people are hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will advance the cause of equality and strike down California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act when it decides on two major cases this spring. They understand that momentum has shifted to our side when all manner of mainstream politicians, including Republicans, are suddenly rushing to say that they now support the right of same-sex couples to marry.

But not everyone is so eager for a victory. In a recent article, the liberal New York Times warned that a decision in favor of marriage equality might, in fact, harm the cause of LGBT rights—because it could ignite a “culture war.”

… It’s hard to think of a better illustration of how the timidity of liberalism in the Obama era leads to compromises and concessions, even on issues where our side is winning.

American eugenics: Not a thing of the past.

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Parenting with a Disability Today: The Eugenics Movement’s Backdoor?

The first half of the 20th century was characterized by the eugenics movement, during which more than 30 states legalized involuntary sterilization. This legislative trend was premised on the belief that people with disabilities and other “socially inadequate” populations would produce offspring who would be burdensome to society. Because of these state statutes, more than 65,000 Americans were involuntarily sterilized by 1970.

Even today, 22 years after the passage of the ADA, several states still have some form of involuntary sterilization laws on their books. A few even retain the original statutory language, which labels the targets of these procedures as possessing hereditary forms of “idiocy” and “imbecility,” and state that the best interests of society would be served by preventing them from procreating.

In fact, there appears to be a growing trend nationally and internationally toward sterilizing people with intellectual or psychiatric disabilities. Five years ago, a nine-year-old American girl with developmental disabilities was forced to undergo a procedure to, among other things, stunt her growth and remove her reproductive organs. Since then, more than 100 families have reportedly subjected their disabled children to similar treatment, while thousands more have considered doing so.

In the fall of 2011, the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health filed a petition to have the parents of a woman with a psychiatric disability appointed as temporary guardians for the purpose of consenting to an abortion, despite the fact that the woman had refused such a procedure, citing her religious beliefs. The court ordered that the woman’s parents be appointed as co-guardians and said she could be “coaxed, bribed, or even enticed … by ruse” into a hospital where she would be sedated and an abortion would be performed. The judge also ordered the facility that performed the abortion to sterilize the woman “to avoid this painful situation from recurring in the future.”

The familial rights of people with disabilities appear to be declining rapidly. In 1989, 29 states restricted the rights of people with psychiatric disabilities to marry. Ten years later, this number had increased to 33. Further, in 1989, 23 states restricted the parenting rights of people with psychiatric disabilities; by 1999, 27 states had enacted restrictions.

Unquestionably, the power of eugenics ideology persists. Today, women with disabilities contend with coercive tactics designed to encourage sterilization or abortions because they are deemed not fit for motherhood.

When a woman has less rights than a non-sentient bundle of cells INSIDE HER OWN BODY … in other words, North Dakota says: “A woman’s function in society is to make babies. End of story.”

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North Dakota lawmakers voted on Friday afternoon to pass a “personhood” abortion ban, which would endow fertilized eggs with all the rights of U.S. citizens and effectively outlaw abortion. The measure, which passed the Senate last month, passed the House by a 57-35 vote and now heads to a ballot vote, likely in the next November election.

A personhood ban could have far-reaching consequences even beyond abortion care, since it will charge doctors who damage embryos with criminal negligence. Doctors in the state say it will also prevent them from performing in vitro fertilization, and some medical professionals have vowed to leave the state if it is signed into law.

Personhood measures are so extreme that some pro-life Republicans in the state have come out against them, planning to join a pro-choice rally in the state capital on Monday to oppose the far-right abortion restriction. “We have stepped over the line,” Republican state Rep. Kathy Hawken (R-Fargo) said of the recent push to pass personhood. “North Dakota hasn’t even passed a primary seatbelt law, but we have the most invasive attack on women’s health anywhere.”

Personhood advocates have pushed their agenda in states throughout the country over the past several years, but their measures have so far been unable to advance. Anti-choice lawmakers in North Dakota, who have already pushed through a stringent six-week abortion ban, were actually considering two different types of personhood legislation — one to immediately amend the state’s constitution to redefine life as beginning at conception, and one to put a personhood amendment on the ballot. The House voted down the first and passed the second.

Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Summer - 2013!

National Abortion Provider Appreciation Day

I love this so much.