What Happens When Women Can't Access Abortion?

When women can't access abortion, sometimes they die. It's that simple. The recent case of Salvita Halappanavar, the Irish woman who suffered and died while a hospital refused to complete a miscarriage in progress because there was still a fetal heartbeat tragically underlines this possibility. Her death highlights what happens when health policy is dictated by religion, not science.

There is no excuse for the death of this woman. Reputable, peer reviewed, scientific research has shown repeatedly that denying women access to abortion increases maternal mortality.* Now there is a new study, The Turnaway Study, that teaches us even more.**

The Turnaway Study looked at women who were "turned away" when seeking abortions versus women who received care. It both debunked myths and deepened our understanding of some of the social outcomes of denying abortion care. For example, they find that there is no proof that women who have abortions have poor mental health outcomes or a greater risk of drug use. What they did find was that women denied access to abortions are more likely to live below the poverty line one year later than their counterparts, they are more likely to be unemployed one year later, and more likely to be on public assistance one year later. Clearly, this places a cost burden on the state.

Some countries get it. France recently decided to make abortion a free service for all women, something that will inevitably save the country money. Although I would never argue the case for abortion simply because it saves the state money, the fact that it does is good. But we can't pick and choose which human rights to support by their cost. Denying human rights always has a social cost.  Steven D. Levitt makes the case in Freakonomics that Roe v. Wade resulted in a decrease in the crime rate. Again, a good outcome, but not one that would comprise the main part of any argument I made supporting access to abortion.

To me, the most troubling finding of the The Turnaway Study is that women denied access are more likely to live in violent and abusive relationships one year after being turned away. They did not enter these relationships in the intervening year; they were less likely to escape them. Getting an abortion allowed women to get out of violent relationships more easily.

As reported before in this blog, laws criminalizing abortion have such terrible results for women that UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health condemned them on October 24, 2011, calling them an abuse of state power. That's what the situation in Ireland looks like to me.

We are fortunate in Canada. We have no law on abortion. In spite of recent rallying cries by anti-abortion zealots such as MP Woodworth and his cohort, we don't need a law. Canada's experience with the decriminalization of abortion proves that we don't need a law. The twenty fifth anniversary of the Morgentaler decision is coming up this January. Canada has a generation of women who have never known anything but a society in which abortion is a medical matter, not a legal matter, and the sky has not fallen. A recent poll shows Canadians understand the benefits of this policy on our society and the majority of Canadians support unrestricted access. It's time we take the message of this success story to the world.

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Notes:

*(See any number of studies on the Guttmacher site, which has a whole section related to abortion, here.) 

**(The Facebook Site linked to above has a ton of information. To keep it a little more brief, see this article by Annallee Newitz. It also includes a link to the whole study.)

Review from Vernon

They say never to read your reviews, and I obviously don't do it too often. This is a review from a production that happened months ago, in Vernon BC. I finally read it today. It's really pretty good, and I wanted to share it with you.

Of course, we always like our good reviews, and again I have to thank Jessika LaFramboise and the cast and crew of this production at the Hub Arts Collective for their hard work.

Here is the review by Graeme Higginson. If you're thinking about a production, this should help you decide and give you a good idea of how the play is taken up by the audience.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-hub-arts-collective/reviews-by-graeme-higginson-the-abortion-monologues/263764340401858

Another interesting note from the Vernon show. The producer provided me with quite a few stories after the fact. One was that a local anti-choice group was pretty stoked about protesting the play. They were contacting her, making sure the show would go on because they really wanted to protest. I found it interesting that the lines of communication were so open between the two. Good to know that civility reigns in Vernon. Two of the anti-choice group's members watched the play the first night and took copious notes. In the end, they decided not to protest. Interesting. This pleases me. When we listen to the voices of women (even if they are fictional) rather than the polarized talking heads that usually take up so much of the public space on this issue, understanding develops. It's harder to hate someone you know, or feel you know. This is how change happens.

Video Clips from Missoula, Montana

The fine people at the Blue Mountain Clinic in Missoula, Montana staged a production of The Abortion Monologues on November 1, 2012. These four video clips capture a little of the night. I want to thank everyone involved in the production for their hard work in bringing my words to life so beautifully. There was lots of money and awareness raised. It warms my heart. It really does. Enjoy the clips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9e3gQPh_d8&feature=BFa&list=ULM9e3gQPh_d8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlsSXmyCsO8&feature=channel&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5G45QrsfDk&feature=channel&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4O7C4-DLss&feature=channel&list=UL

And to all of my friends in the United States, good luck today.

How to Change Minds and Save Women

This morning, I read this remarkable blog post by a woman who used to be "pro-life" and has denounced the movement. It's very long, but so worth the read.

Libby Anne describes how she grew up in the pro-life movement, and in so many words, how her education was circumscribed by it. Out in the larger world during her sophmore year at college, she came across an article in the New York Times that explained how banning abortion and contraception does not end abortions, but in fact increases unwanted pregnancies and abortion and brings harm to women. She went to the studies cited by the NYT and read them. She realized she had been sold a bill of goods. Not only that, she realized the inconsistencies in the movement and how their stance against contraception is really about controlling and punishing women, not saving babies. The blog post is far reaching and a scathing indictment of the pro-life movement. Libby Anne is still no fan of abortion, but now looks at the issue from a pro-choice perspective and espouses pro-choice goals.

It is no big leap to realize that those chanting anti-contraception, anti-abortion and anti-women ideas also attack liberal arts education, the kind of education that demands we do the deep thinking and investigating that Libby Anne does in this blog post. This morning, Margaret Wente, the Globe and Mail columnist recently embroiled in a plagiarism scandal, made another slash at what she labels "faddish academics." Writing again about the ills of liberal arts, she attacks Queen's (one of my alma maters) as a place that is "obsessed with the politics of gender, race and speech." She writes, "Its liberal arts courses offer the usual faddish attention to race, class, gender, oppressed groups, colonialism and the sins of dead white males." Yes, it does, and with good reason. The sins of dead white males and inattention to gender, race, class, oppressed groups and colonialism result in poor thinking, thinking that fails to challenge and change so called knowledge that is really just prejudice and opinion masquerading as fact.

I've been busy with other things lately, and not attending much to this little blog, this abortion-specific forum. Libby Anne's post makes me realize that although I am bored with repeating the same old arguments, arguments that I have known and understood for decades, again and again, the effort is not wasted. It is an educational service.

Speaking of educational services, I want to thank the Blue Mountain Clinic, NARAL, and the Concord Feminist Health Center for productions they are doing of The Abortion Monologues this month. There have been a few productions leading into the US Presidential election, all attempts to get people thinking about supporting choice and supporting women. Thanks for your faith in the play as a vehicle for getting there. Yes, it's all about education. And thanks to Libby Anne for reminding me of that.

Thoughts on Sex Selection and Abortion

After their defeat with Motion 312, the back door attempt to criminalize abortion, the antis are apparently trying again. They are introducing a motion to condemn sex selection, and I would imagine, in doing so, they aim to ban abortion in cases of sex selection. Again, they are stepping way back in the process so the motion seems innocuous. But is it? They think they have found the feminist Achilles heal. They have not.

 

In my play, The Abortion Monologues, there is a monologue delivered by a character who is having an abortion because she is having a girl. She talks about being at a women’s centre and telling the worker there that she is having an abortion and they tell her she doesn’t have to do this, that in Canada, it is acceptable to have a girl and no one can force her to have an abortion. The character explains that her husband and his family are unhappy and that she is also unhappy about having a girl, about letting them down. The point is, her beliefs are their beliefs. She knows what she knows. She wants the abortion. She wants the support of the women at the women’s centre in this choice.

 

The character is sad this has to happen, but she knows it has to happen. She knows more than anyone what it will be like for this girl to be born into this family at this time. She knows how this girl will suffer in her life. The girl will suffer as she has suffered. Although it “should not” be this way, and girls “should” be as welcome as boys, in fact, they are not.

 

As women, when we decide whether or not to continue our pregnancies, we deal with what is, not with what should be or what is theoretically palatable. This woman knows she cannot provide for this child in some way that matters, in some way that matters to her.

 

Is it any different than knowing one cannot provide economically for a child and choosing an abortion for this reason? No. Will we tell the woman of no economic means that this is not a good reason to have an abortion? No. We all know we wish it weren’t so, that in a perfect world all women would be capable of supporting their families, but in our world, the imperfect world, they are not. Women still earn much less than men and have less steady work, work in lower paid part time jobs and without benefits. We lack affordable and decent child care. These are issues we all know about.

 

Is it any different than knowing one cannot provide for a child that will have significant and potentially devastating medical needs? Perhaps there will be serious challenges that will likely consume the family's time and income, leaving little left for the other children. Will we tell this woman that this is not an acceptable reason for having an abortion? No. Again, we all know that in a perfect world, the needs of every child, no matter how specific, how costly, how out of the ordinary they may be, would be met. But in our imperfect world, they are not. Again, we deal with what is, not with what should be. 

 

Meanwhile, we do not stop striving to make the world a place where these factors no longer matter, where every child’s needs are met, where something like economic constraints do not have to become part of the choice.

 

Ultimately, when we factor out all the “reasons” for abortion, whether they be economic or social, there will still be abortions. What happens when we only have women left who choose abortion because they simply don’t want to have a child? Do we tell these women that this is not a good reason? That this is selfish? No. We would not do this.

 

The whole line of thinking that some abortions are done for reasons that are more valid than others, because someone was raped, for example, is problematic. Any woman can choose an abortion for any reason, and she doesn’t have to tell us what it is. It's none of our business. 

Meanwhile, we do not stop striving to make the world a place where little girls are as wanted as little boys, where the systemic discrimination of women is a thing of the past. As we all know, taking away a woman’s right to control her own body, to be fully informed and make fully informed choices, is not a way to do this.

 

Demanding a woman give birth to an unwanted girl to make some sort of anti-sexist point is to sacrifice her will for ideology. It is as coercive as demanding she abort the girl, also a demand that sacrifices her will for ideology.

 

We assume, and I think we assume wrongly, that women who have an abortion for reasons of sex selection do so unwillingly. To impose our ideas on another woman’s life is patronizing. We can’t know. We don’t need to know. Again, it’s none of our business. As always, the pregnant woman is the best person to make this choice about her own body and her own family. No one can take this away from her. To do so would be truly sexist.  

 

The motion will undoubtedly allow racism into the argument. We will see the dreaded "White Man's Burden" argument rear its ugly head. Someone will suggest it is the place of "Canadians" to teach "Others" how to live. I have no problem asking "Canadians" to be exemplary. To do that, let's clean up our own backyard and make sure Canadian women have true equality and that we bring an end to the kind of systemic discrimination that leads to girls being worth less than boys. But let's not pretend we have this figured out already. We don't.  

 

Our bottom line has to be to let the woman decide. Always. There is no feminist dilemma here. Only sadness that our world is still so imperfect and that we are so far from achieving equality.

 

 

M 312 and Jason Kenney: What Kind of Fuckery is This?

In the immortal words of Amy Winehouse, "What kind of fuckery is this?"

I don't think this blog has left any stone unturned in M312 Shenanigans, but since today is the vote, something must be said to mark the occasion.

We know that Stephen Harper uses the rights of women as a bargaining chip to speak to his base. This is clear. We know that the Conservatives say one thing and do another, and as my mother always told me, actions speak louder than words. Today, I'd like to concentrate on just one MP, the vitriolic Jason Kenney.

Jason Kenney will vote for Motion 312. This should come as no surprise given his history. He has been anti choice forever. He was involved in threats to sue his Catholic University in California for not being Catholic enough. That is actually one of my all time favourite things about Jason Kenney. He has an ego big enough that he thinks he can direct the Catholic Church. Un-fricking-believable. When I didn't like what the Church had to say, I left it. I didn't try to make it over in my own image.

But the Conservatives are all about makeovers. You will recall that Mr. Harper said we wouldn't recognize Canada when he was through with it. This has turned out to be true. My Canada was one where the government had no business in the bedrooms of the nation, and I liked it that way.

But in a democracy, the blame (or responsibility) for what government does lies as much with the voter as with the government because, at least for now, we are the government.

Anyway, to get back to my point, we all know that Mr. Harper has said that  a vote for this motion is a vote against the government. So Mr. Kenney will be voting against his government. Can we expect to see him demoted to the rank of back bencher? Highly unlikely. No, don't be fooled. Both he and Mr. Woodworth are doing Harper's dirty work for him. They are speaking to the base while Harper gets to pretend his hands are clean.

Meanwhile women get to be continually reminded that our rights are up for debate.

Tonight at 6:00 watch carefully for what your own MP does and remember this the next time you vote. See who shows up for women's rights and who stays away. See who represents you and who does not. Keep a list. Then check it twice when the next federal election comes up.

In my neck of the woods, a by-election in Calgary Centre will arrive soon. Remember the treachery. Remember who stood up for women.

Notable Canadian Women Oppose Motion 312

I'm one of a whack of "notable Canadian women" who have signed an open letter opposing Motion 312. You can see it here. I can't tell you how happy I am to be on the same list as women such as Maureen McTeer, Abby Lippman, Penny Kome, Judy Rebick, Heather Mallick and so many others who have inspired me for so many years. This made my day.

But we all know, any woman could sign that letter, and of course all women are encouraged to do so. Copy it, put your name on it. Send it to your MP. We are all notable Canadian women. Add your name to the list.