Abortion

Roger Evans, Planned Parenthood's senior director for litigation and law, told me over the phone that his main objection is to "the notion that the government has a role in deciding what are fair reasons and unfair reasons for a woman to have an abortion." First it's race and sex -- but what next? On a more practical level, though, the bill "makes it exceedingly difficult for physicians or counselors to talk with women who have concerns or ambivalence about what to do," he explains. "If [the patient] mentions the prohibited subject, it puts doctors in the position of saying, 'I can't talk to you about what you're thinking'" -- not to mention the position of refusing to perform an abortion on that patient for fear of being thrown in prison.

At its core, the measure is "a proscription on open communication between doctor and patient." The flip side of that, however, is that it potentially puts pressure on doctors to cross-examine their patients so as to be sure a woman's decision to abort isn't motivated by sex or race. (And how could one ever be sure?) It also seems very likely that the bill would make pro-choice activists wary of doing outreach services in minority communities -- for fear of it being construed as "soliciting" abortions based on race -- and make abortion providers cautious about serving women of color.

It's important to look at this measure within the context of a recent push to reframe the abortion debate as a battle over racial discrimination. Last week, I wrote about how the Endangered Species Project, which is backed in part by Georgia Right to Life, alleges a "black genocide" at the hands of Planned Parenthood and uses African-American babies as anti-abortion propaganda. Both the bill and the ad campaign are built on the same false premise: That the higher abortion rate in the African-American community is the result of a racist conspiracy by medical providers and pro-choice activists (as opposed to, say, the end result of social manifestations of racism -- like poor healthcare and sex education -- which Planned Parenthood actually works to address). The only evidence they have offered up of such a conspiracy has been thoroughly debunked. 

There is no concerted effort by abortion providers to find pregnant black women to pressure into having an abortion. In fact, there is no concerted effort by providers to find pregnant women of any race to pressure into having an abortion. (Must I once again mention that the vast majority of Planned Parenthood's reproductive services are preventive?) The presumption of a need for this measure in the first place is based on anti-abortion mythology. If it becomes law, though, it sounds like a different kind of racial discrimination -- one that deprives minorities of equal access to reproductive services -- just might become a reality.

Here's the thing: I think we should acknowledge that abortion can change you, that it isn't necessarily an "eh, whatevs" event. For some women, it may be akin to getting a tooth pulled; for others, though, it results in a profound and haunting loss. None of this goes against the dominant pro-choice message, which is that women should be allowed to make their own reproductive choices based on what they feel is right for them. Women have different experiences of abortion and they should be allowed to make different decisions, too.

That isn't to say I'm super pumped about the ads, though. They present one side of the story, which is that abortion changes you, period. Not that abortion can change a woman, but that it always does, and that is quite simply a lie. It isn't the sort of message born of concern for women, but rather a concern for converting women. Also, you know what is guaranteed to change you and your life in a profound way? Motherhood. But I don't recall seeing any subways ads featuring a woman knee-deep in dirty diapers with the text, "I thought life would be the way it was before."

CNN reports that some Iowa households are getting robocalls that feature a recorded message in which a woman calls Santorum "a pro-life fraud" and suggests recipients "ask him to apologize for his longtime support of radical pro-abortion politicians." The politicians named are "the abortion-promoting governor of New Jersey, Christine Todd Whitman" and "radical abortionist Sen. Arlen Specter." The call also slams Specter as a "left-wing Democrat," not mentioning that when Santorum campaigned for him, he was still a Republican.

On Monday, I was one of a handful of reporters who received an e-mail from "Rick Santorum" that contained a link to YouTube, where the audio of the call has been posted. That clip is below.

If this is true, and her decision about ending her child-bearing is solid and responsible, one has to wonder why she didn't just have a tubal ligation. That would have been a logical step and one that would have spared her the discomfort of a faux-miscarriage, while saving the rest of the universe the anguish of assisting at such a personal and difficult moment. 

Jackson claims to have about 800 followers on Twitter. In a CNN interview on Monday, she mentioned a book she'd like to have published. If aborting on Twitter is her idea of a great way to boost future book sales, then this is an even greater abuse of reproductive rights than I initially thought. 

Those of us who came from generations where women had no legal abortion choices understand how precious the right to choose is. Those of us who drove in the dark of night to deliver or pick up a friend in a back-alley clinic, terrified that that friend hemorrhaging in the back seat of our car might die on our watch, know things that Ms. Jackson clearly cannot fathom. 

We put flowers on women's graves, took to the streets, marched, got arrested, lobbied, volunteered our time, held fundraisers, took abuse from opponents, shouldered death threats, and -- in my case -- got thrown out of the churches of our birth so that our daughters and others could have reproductive choices. 

We make no apologies. We have no regrets. 

But the right we were fighting so hard for -- which was granted only a short 37 years ago -- was based on what the Supreme Court called "privacy." 

We wanted a woman to be able to make personal decisions about their pregnancies in the privacy of their most intimate circles -- her partner, family, closest friends, physician and religious advisors, if she so chose. Or, she could decide as a panel of one and discuss it with no one. 

Angie Jackson has the right to choose to take RU-486 and then write about her cramps, her bleeding, and the eventual expulsion of the products of conception on the Internet. But many of us who have spent our lives on the front lives of the abortion debate also have the right to hate the fact that she chose to do this. 

At its worst, it is self-serving, exhibitionist and selfish. At best, it has "bad judgment" written all over it.

Mary Ann Sorrentino, a columnist and former radio host in New England, served as executive director of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island from 1977 to 1987. Her Open Salon blog can be found here.

The poster is the brainchild of the Polish anti-abortion group Fundacja Pro. In a statement to Reuters, campaign organiser Mariusz Dzierzawski said: "It is our duty to fight for the rights of murdered children. Abortion is a crime and drawing such a parallel is absolutely justified." He plans to hang his Hitler posters in thirty other Polish towns over the coming days and weeks.

In this traditionally Catholic country where opinions are divided more or less evenly about amending Poland's strict anti-abortion laws, not everyone appreciates the campaign. Many Poles are upset at seeing Hitler's face on the streets of a city that suffered immense losses in World War II (Heinrich Himmler delivered his infamous speech on the Final Solution at the Poznan Castle). Many are also troubled by the hypocrisy of the campaign itself. While Hitler did encourage Polish and other "non-Aryan" women to abort their children, he was anything but a champion of abortion rights in his own society and actually handed out medals to German women who gave birth to four or more children. "This is sick... Fascism, Stalinism... prohibited abortion, often on pain of death, so bans on abortion are strongly linked to totalitarianism," Magdalena Sroda, a professor of ethics, told the Polish daily paper Gazeta Wyborcza. Adam Boniecki, a Catholic cleric and chief editor of the Tygodnik Powszechny in Cracow, expressed his disgust at Dzerzawski's Hitler comparison and the campaign poster, saying that "a line has been crossed."

Will the poster change many Poles' minds? We shouldn't underestimate the factor of basic common sense. Hitler simply doesn't fly as a "pro-life" spokesman - ironic or otherwise - in a country that was the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Sobibor extermination camps. Nazi plans called for the enslavement and gradual annhilation of the Polish people. From 1939 to 1945 Hitler and his henchmen murdered close to six million Poles (nearly a fifth of the pre-war population), divided into roughly equal measure between Catholics and Jews.

But Dzierzawski has bigger concerns than a sense of historical proportion. He recently told the Gazeta Wyborcza that previous "soft campaigns" against abortion had so far had little impact on opponents of existing laws, which prohibit all abortions except in certain cases of rape and incest, severe birth defects, and danger to the life of the mother. Polish feminist and pro-choice organisations traditionally use International Women's Day as an occasion to get their message across, and his organization now needs to reach for stronger measures to maintain the status quo. "We as abortion opponents have no choice," Dzierzawski said.

But Dzierzawski really doesn't have much to complain about. In fact, he can be deeply satisfied that, thanks to his campaign and the moral authority of the Catholic Church, Poland has one of the lowest official abortion rates in all of Europe, counting fewer than 300 procedures in 2009.

It all depends on how you count, though. Polish women's groups estimate the number of illegal back alley abortions at over 180,000 per year.

Democratic leaders seem to be taking Stupak seriously. Though House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Thursday that Stupak's allies might not be as determined to join him as he thinks, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer appears to be working with him on this.

"Separate pieces of legislation could be passed that would relate to that," Hoyer told reporters. "I talked to Mr. Stupak today, and I'm going to be talking to him next week and he indicated he wanted to have some discussions with people. And I will do that."

There's a real potential sticking point here, though. The current plan is to make fixes to the Senate bill that will make it more palatable to House Democrats, and to do so through reconciliation, a budget procedure that prevents a filibuster. Problem is, there are some pretty strict rules about how reconciliation can be used, and new language on abortion would pretty clearly not qualify to be considered using the procedure. That's why Hoyer's talking about separate legislation.