Blogs Respond to Antiabortion Ads, Use of Twitter To Describe Abortion, Other Topics

March 12, 2010 — The following summarizes selected women's health-related blog entries.

~ "Ads Tell Women: 'Abortion Changes You,'" Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon's "Broadsheet": This week, the antiabortion-rights group Abortion Changes You ran a series of ads across the New York City subway system that "depict either a woman saying, 'I thought life would be the way it was before,' or a man saying, 'I often wonder if there was something I could have done to help her,'" Clark-Flory writes. She adds that although "we should acknowledge that abortion can change you, ... [w]omen have different experiences of abortion" that can range from being "akin to getting a tooth pulled" to "result[ing] in a profound and haunting loss." She continues that "[n]one 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." However, the ads "present one side of the story, which is that abortion changes you, period," Clark-Flory writes. She adds, "Also, you know what is guaranteed to change you and your life in a profound way? Motherhood." She concludes, "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'" (Clark-Flory, "Broadsheet," Salon, 3/9).

~ "Forty 4 Forty -- Making Lemonade for Choice," Lon Newman, Below the Waist: The "Forty Days for Life" protests in front of the Family Planning Health Services clinic, "bring us a lot of attention that can be put to good use," FPHS Executive Director Newman writes. However, "the antiabortion signs persistently misrepresent what FPHS actually does [by] confusing the public about whether FPHS provides abortion," Newman says, noting that the clinic does not provide abortion services and is "prohibited by our grant contracts from even making referrals." According to Newman, FPHS "provides contraceptive services, provides all-options information" and supports abortion rights. Newman also writes that it is "important that the public and other health care providers" know that the protesters are "opposed to contraception, as well as abortion" (Newman, Below the Waist, 3/9).

~ "The Senate Bill Funds Abortion? Nope, and It's More Pro-Life Than the House Version," David Gibson, Politics Daily's "Disputations": Antiabortion-rights advocates have criticized the Senate reform bill (HR 3590) as a "multibillion-dollar taxpayer subsidy for abortion," and they contend that the House bill (HR 3962) is preferable, columnist Gibson writes. "A close reading of the two bills, however, informed by analyses from a range of experts, reveals that the pro-life claims about the Senate bill and its abortion financing provisions are, in fact mistaken," Gibson says. He adds that the Senate bill "is in some respects arguably stronger in barring abortion financing and in promoting abortion reduction." While abortion-rights opponents charge that the Senate bill would provide several billion dollars directly to community health centers -- including Planned Parenthood clinics -- Gibson writes that "none of the 1,250 federally qualified health centers ... that would receive the billions in money through the reform bill offer abortion services." HHS has said that none of the health centers that would receive the funds are operated by Planned Parenthood, according to Gibson (Gibson, "Disputations," Politics Daily, 3/11).

~ "Feminomics: Pro-Life Atlanta's Big Lie to Poor and Minority Women," June Carbone, Huffington Post blogs: "Georgia Right to Life has taken something that should be celebrated -- the long-term decline in African-American teen pregnancies and improvident births -- and turned it into a canard, raising the specter of genocide in the voluntary reduction of childbearing," Carbone writes. Although births to black teens -- along with all teen births -- fell "dramatically" in the 1990s, these "encouraging trends have been turned around, and groups like Georgia Right to Life are part of the reason," Carbone says. She continues, "African-American teens are more likely than whites to have their high school sex education class as their only source of information about birth control at the time of their first sexual encounter" and more likely "to be enrolled in abstinence-only programs." In addition, low-income minority teens are more likely to experience "unwelcome sexual advances, unintended pregnancy and childbirth in improvident circumstances," according to Carbone. She concludes, "We say shame on you [Georgia Right to Life] and to anyone else who would undermine poor women's efforts to exercise responsibility over their reproductive future" (Carbone, Huffington Post blogs, 3/10).

~ "Former Planned Parenthood ED Calls for Women's Silence Around Abortion," Jos Truitt, Feministing: The blog post comments on a recent Salon column by Mary Ann Sorrentino, the former executive director of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island. Sorrentino criticized a woman named Angie Jackson for using Twitter to describe her abortion. According to Truitt, "Sorrentino attempts to make a generational argument, claiming pre-Roe feminists understand how bad illegal abortion was and how hard they fought for it, and [they] know their aim was to gain a private right." Truitt contends that Sorrentino's argument had "nothing to do with generational divisions" and is actually "an argument that women shouldn't speak their truth in public." She continues, "Sorrentino's piece reads like she's telling Jackson to be ladylike, to be a 'good girl,'" adding, "This isn't the feminism of a previous generation -- it's an argument that the divides between public and private should be maintained, with women's experiences kept in the private sphere. It's an argument for silence, for stigma and for an appropriate way of being a lady." Noting that "Jackson used new technology to share the experience as it was happening," Truitt calls her tactic "a new twist on an old consciousness raising technique" (Truitt, Feministing, 3/10).

~ "Stupak's Abortion Gang Falling Apart as Pro-Life Members Admit Senate Bill Won't Fund Abortions," Igor Volsky, Think Progress' "The Wonk Room": Volsky discusses the dwindling number of House members likely to make their support for health care reform contingent upon Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) anti-abortion language. Stupak had previously claimed he had 15 to 20 supporters who would oppose the Senate health reform bill's (HR 3590), then lowered the number to around 12. On Wednesday, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow reported that a senior House aide said only four or five House members would back Stupak, Volsky adds. He observes that "it seems like a shrinking number of moderate Democrats are willing to take part in Stupak's effort to lie about the provisions in the Senate bill in order to strip abortion coverage from private health insurance." For instance, Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) -- who voted for the Stupak amendment -- recently said, "I'm not going to support a final bill that allows one penny of taxpayer funding to be used for abortion ... [b]ut I am not convinced that [the Senate bill] allows taxpayer funding of abortions." According to Volsky, Altmire is "admitting that the Senate bill is in fact a compromise that doesn't go as far as the Stupak amendment, but still maintains current law." He continues, "Meanwhile, pro-choice groups are arguing that the Senate bill goes too far in restricting women's access to abortion coverage." Volsky concludes, "With both sides objecting to the Senate bill, it's become difficult for Stupak and his gang of four (or five) to perpetuate the fundamentally dishonest claim that the Senate bill spends federal dollars to fund abortions. As a result, honest pro-life advocates have begun to admit the truth" (Volsky, "The Wonk Room," Think Progress, 3/11).

~ "Shame Is the Price of Choice?" Amanda Marcotte, Slate's "XX Factor": Marcotte takes issue with a recent Salon column by Mary Ann Sorrentino -- a former executive director of Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island -- that criticized Angie Jackson's decision to use Twitter to chronicle her experience with medical abortion. According to Marcotte, "For someone who lays claim to feminist history, Sorrentino sure is ready to engage in two of the most sexist tropes around in order to shame [Jackson] for having an abortion and talking about it in public." Marcotte claims that Sorrentino "demands that Jackson get herself sterilized if she doesn't want any more children, which, of course, is the classic sexist idea ... that perfect strangers know better how to use a woman's reproductive system than she does." Marcotte disagrees that Jackson was wrong to share her experiences in the hopes of scoring a book deal. "For all that Sorrentino wrings her hands about how the right to privacy incurs an obligation to hang your head and shut up about your experiences, the reality looks a lot more like, well, what Angie Jackson did," Marcotte says, adding, "Which is to argue for the right to abortion through story-telling" (Marcotte, "XX Factor," Slate, 3/9).