The Angry Black Woman

I had many plans for this post. I was gonna write about Copenhagen 15. But weeks later I still feel so damn furious and depressed that I decided to ignore that. So I intended to featuring another blog, or writing about the recent incidents of whitewashing. But this morning I looked over at Alas a blog and found the two first posts. And I had missed the “Blog Prochoice Day” last week Friday. And so, it was decided.

Most people think of abortion as the be-all and end all of women’s reproductive health struggles. But it isn’t. Not by a long shot. Here are some links on the reproductive Justice Movement, a movement founded by people of color who rejected the abortion-only model of activism held by the mainstream feminism movement in favor of a holistic and inclusive movement to demand that women get and keep the rights over their own bodies.

Without ado therefore, lets begin.

Definition

What is reproductive justice? According to A New Vision for Reproductive Justice PDF by the Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice

We believe reproductive justice is the complete physical, mental, spiritual, political, economic, and social well-being of women and girls, and will be achieved when women and girls have the economic, social and political power and resources to make healthy decisions about our bodies, sexuality and reproduction for ourselves, our families and our communities in all areas of our lives.

The paper continues on to explain that:

The Reproductive Justice framework is rooted in the recognition of the histories of reproductive oppression and abuse in all communities, and in the case of ACRJ, in the histories of Asian communities and other communities of color. This framework uses a model grounded in organizing women and girls to change structural power inequalities. The central theme of the Reproductive Justice framework is a focus on the control and exploitation of women’s bodies, sexuality and reproduction as an effective strategy of controlling women and communities, particularly those of color. Controlling a woman’s body controls her life, her options and her potential. Historically and currently, a woman’s lack of power and self-determination is mediated through the multiple oppressions of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, age and immigration status. Thus, controlling individual women becomes a strategic pathway to regulating entire communities. To realize a vision of the complete health and well being of all women and girls, a Reproductive Justice framework also engages with issues such as sex trafficking, youth empowerment, family unification, educational justice, unsafe working conditions, domestic violence, discrimination of queer and transgendered communities, immigrant rights, environmental justice, and globalization. Analysis of the Problem Women’s ability to exercise self-determination—including in their reproductive lives—is impacted by power inequities inherent in our society’s institutions, environment, economics, and culture. The analysis of the problems, strategies and
envisioned solutions must be comprehensive and focus on a host of interconnecting social justice and human rights issues that affect women’s bodies, sexuality, and reproduction.MORE

SisterSong, which seems to be the umbrella organization has this paper: Understanding Reproductive Justice PDF

One of the key problems addressed by Reproductive Justice is the isolation of abortion from other social justice issues that concern communities of color. Abortion isolated from other social justice/human rights issues neglects issues of economic justice, the environment, immigrants’ rights, disability rights, discrimination based on race and sexual orientation, and a host of other community-centered concerns directly affecting an individual woman’s decision making process. By shifting the definition of the problem to one of reproductive oppression (the control and exploitation of women, girls, and individuals through our bodies, sexuality, labor, and reproduction) rather than a narrow focus on protecting the legal right to abortion, we are developing a more inclusive vision of how to move forward in building a new movement.
Because reproductive oppression affects women’s lives in multiple ways, a multi-pronged approach is needed to fight this exploitation and advance the well-being of women and girls. There are three main frameworks for fighting reproductive oppression: 1) Reproductive Health which deals with service delivery, 2) Reproductive Rights which address the legal regime, and 3) Reproductive Justice which focuses on movement building. Although the frameworks are distinct in their approach, they work in tandem with each other to provide a complementary and comprehensive solution. Ultimately, as in any movement, all three components of service, advocacy and organizing are crucial to advancing the movement.MORE

Reproductive Justice and Women’s Rights

Reproductive Justice: Who is fit to have children?  Controlling Poor Pregnant Mothers. (Race and Class Intersect big time here)

The New York Times writes a nice article on The Crack epidemic that wasn’t

When the use of crack cocaine became a nationwide epidemic in the 1980s and ’90s, there were widespread fears that prenatal exposure to the drug would produce a generation of severely damaged children. Newspapers carried headlines like “Cocaine: A Vicious Assault on a Child,” “Crack’s Toll Among Babies: A Joyless View” and “Studies: Future Bleak for Crack Babies.”

But now researchers are systematically following children who were exposed to cocaine before birth, and their findings suggest that the encouraging stories of Ms. H.’s daughters are anything but unusual. So far, these scientists say, the long-term effects of such exposure on children’s brain development and behavior appear relatively small.

“Are there differences? Yes,” said Barry M. Lester, a professor of psychiatry at Brown University who directs the Maternal Lifestyle Study, a large federally financed study of children exposed to cocaine in the womb. “Are they reliable and persistent? Yes. Are they big? No.”

Cocaine is undoubtedly bad for the fetus. But experts say its effects are less severe than those of alcohol and are comparable to those of tobacco — two legal substances that are used much more often by pregnant women, despite health warnings. MORE

Except, as Colombia Journalism Review points out, The New York Times carefully refrains from pointing out that they were among the “newspapers” that were running front page screaming headlines

Newspapers like… the Times, producer of the “Crack’s Toll Among Babies: A Joyless View” headline that today’s Times mentions but doesn’t cop to having authored. In this 1989 “Crack’s Toll” piece, a research psychologist is quoted saying that “prenatal exposure to illegal drugs, particularly powdered cocaine and its smokable derivative, crack, seems to be ‘interfering with the central core of what it is to be human.’” (Read: Epidemic!)

…

Back in 2004, Mariah Blake wrote for CJR about the “media myth” of the “crack baby” and detailed how the Times contributed to it over the years (even quoting from the “Crack’s Toll” article). Blake wrote about “a group of doctors and scientists …lobbying The Times to drop terms like ‘crack baby’ from its pages,” because, the group said, these terms are “stigmatizing” and “lack scientific validity.”

Reported Blake four years ago (emphasis mine):

While the [Times] hasn’t used “crack baby” in the last several months, it has referred to babies being “addicted” to crack, which, as the researchers told the editors, is scientifically inaccurate, since babies cannot be born addicted to cocaine.

Which leaves me wondering about the photo caption accompanying today’s (print) Times piece (emphasis mine): “In a 1988 photo, testing a baby born addicted to cocaine.”

That led to increased oppression of poor pregnant women, especially if they were of color

Earlier medical studies of women who used drugs while they were pregnant demonstrated the bias of the studies’ authors. While the authors were looking for the singular effect of cocaine on pregnancy, they often failed to notice that many of the women they studied were polydrug users, meaning they often used more than one drug, including tobacco and alcohol, during pregnancy.10 Additionally, the women studied had limited access to prenatal care or other health care services, they had co-occurring illnesses or diseases, they had suffered from some sort of sexual or psychological trauma, and they were frequently exposed to environmental contaminants. All of these factors have been shown to play a role in negative pregnancy outcomes. Additionally, it has recently been discovered that men can also affect pregnancy outcomes, depending on contaminants they might be exposed to or other physiological factors.

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After the crack baby’s birth, pregnant and parenting women began to face the scorn of both the public and the police throughout the country. South Carolina began to arrest and prosecute women who used drugs while they were pregnant, and this trend was to be followed by states across the country. The leading teaching hospital in the state of South Carolina, the Medical University of South Carolina, instituted a policy of searching and arresting pregnant women on charges of child (fetal) abuse-but only if they had used cocaine. The policy-that resulted in some pregnant and newly delivered women being taken out of the hospital in chains and shackles-was applied only to those women who used cocaine and none of the scores of other legal and illegal substances that women used that caused potential damage to future children.

Children Requiring a Karing Community (C.R.A.C.K.), a program that offers $200 to women to be sterilized or undertake long-term birth control like Norplant or Depo-Provera if they use drugs, is another product of the crack baby scare. The program, created and spearheaded by a white, upper class woman, thrives on a rhetoric that speaks to the laziness and selfishness that has become the stereotype of the poor, black crack mother: C.R.A.C.K. literature reads “Don’t let a pregnancy get in the way of your habit.” These are just a few examples of the way that the representation of crack babies and their mothers trumped any medical or scientific truth-they were the truth in the war against poor women who use crack. MORE

While we are at though, it appears that Alcohol is not quite the villain that it has been portrayed by the sensationalistic mainstream media and pious interfering men-know-best politicians, doctors and otther groups. You see, what causes what is referred to as Fetal Alcoholic Syndrome may be more complicated than just alcohol itself…

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the Social Control of Mothers

It turns out that only about 5% of alcoholic women give birth to babies who are later diagnosed with FAS. This means that many mothers drink excessively, and many more drink somewhat (at least 16 percent of mothers drink during pregnancy), and yet many, many children born to these women show no diagnosable signs of FAS.
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So, drinking during pregnancy does not appear to be a sufficient cause of FAS, even if it is a necessary cause (by definition?). In her book, Conceiving Risk, Bearing Responsibility, Elizabeth Armstrong explains that FAS is not just related to alcohol intake, but is “highly correlated with smoking, poverty, malnutrition, high parity [i.e., having lots of children], and advanced maternal age” (p. 6). Further, there appears to be a genetic component. Some fetuses may be more vulnerable than others due to different ways that bodies breakdown ethanol, a characteristic that may be inherited. (This may also explain why one fraternal twin is affected, but not the other.)MORE

The Still Cruel Maternity Wards

In 1959, the Ladies’ Home Journal published an article called “Cruelty in the Maternity Wards,” in which women told stories of their inhumane treatment during childbirth. Despite the uproar it provoked, 50 years later, nothing substantial has changed. Really. Recently, a pregnant Florida woman was confined by the court to bedrest and ordered to submit to any treatment her doctor deemed necessary, including cesarean surgery. This is one of a string of similar stories appearing over the past months: A New Jersey woman with PTSD and depression in her past was deprived of custody of her child at birth because she refused to sign a blanket consent at hospital admission for cesarean surgery, an act cited as proof she was too mentally ill to be a fit mother. An Arizona woman with a prior cesarean was told if she showed up in labor and refused automatic surgery, the hospital would get a court order and perform it anyway. And an Illinois woman was literally tortured throughout labor by her doctor to punish her for not calling before coming to the hospital while medical staff stood by and did nothing
MORE

And then there is Reproductive Coercion Is Sexual Violence

Pregnancy Coercion, Intimate Partner Violence and Unintended Pregnancy is the first quantitative examination of the relationship between intimate partner violence, reproductive coercion and unintended pregnancy. It finds that young women and teenage girls often face efforts by male partners to sabotage their birth control or coerce or pressure them to become pregnant – including by damaging condoms and destroying contraceptives. These behaviors, defined as “reproductive coercion,” are often associated with physical or sexual violence. Conducted by researchers at the University of California Davis School of Medicine and the Harvard School of Pubic Health, the study also finds that among women who experienced both reproductive coercion and partner violence, the risk of unintended pregnancy doubled.

From August 2008 to March 2009, researchers worked at five reproductive health clinics in Northern California, querying some 1,300 English- and Spanish-speaking 16- to 29-year-old women who agreed to respond to a survey about their experiences. They were asked about birth-control sabotage, pregnancy coercion and intimate partner violence. Approximately one in five young women said they experienced pregnancy coercion and 15 percent said they experienced birth control sabotage. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they had experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner. Thirty-five percent of the women who reported partner violence also reported either pregnancy coercion or birth control sabotage.MORE

Reproductive Justice: Disability

On Claiming My Movement: Disability and Reproductive Justice

Reproductive justice and disability are connected on a deeply fundamental level. Disabled people, issues, history, politics and analysis allow us to see parts of reproductive justice that we would otherwise never know. After all, how can you talk about bodies without talking about disability? How can you ignore the fact that disabled women are forcibly sterilized or given dangerous contraceptives to control their menstrual cycles for the convenience of their caretakers and institutions? How can we learn to fight for not only the right to receive care, but also the right to refuse it? How can we forget that female bodies were historically coded as “disabled” because they were “different” and had “different abilities” than male bodies? Or that ableism is so easily and successfully used as a mechanism of reproductive oppression?MORE

Disabled Women and Reproductive Justice

In the United States, a culture of ableism, which maintains that able-bodied people are superior and most valuable, prevails. In this culture, disability is feared, hated, and typically regarded as a condition that reduces the value of disabled people. The reproductive justice framework helps us understand how eugenic “science” is still a vibrant part of U.S. culture that interacts with and shapes the reproductive lives of disabled women in many ways.

Right to Parent

Women with disabilities (WWD) have a long history of forced sterilization, are often seen as “unfit” mothers and are discouraged from having children, or not allowed to adopt children. Authorities press disabled women to feel guilty for their decisions to be parents, pointing out that their decision will take a “toll” on their children, families, communities and on themselves.

Sexuality

Society typically defines disabled women as asexual and as dependent on able-bodied people, undermining these women’s access to reproductive health. Disabled women and girls often do not receive sex and reproductive health educationMORE

Reproductive Justice: Transgender persons and their healthcare.

Trans Healthcare is a matter of life and death

Robert Eads was visiting friends in the late 1990s when he woke up in a pool of blood. His terrified hosts quickly began calling hospitals, clinics, and private physicians, explaining that Robert was a partially-transitioned female-to-male transsexual and demanding an immediate appointment.

The request was repeatedly rebuffed. By the time Eads found physicians willing to diagnose and treat him at an Augusta, Georgia teaching hospital — a three-hour drive from his home in rural Taccoa, Georgia — his ovarian cancer was so advanced that nothing could be done to save his life. He died in 1999, at age 53.

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Indeed, members of the transmasculine community understand that the line separating them from Eads is frighteningly narrow. Most, like him, have undergone radical mastectomies to better present as male. Furthermore, like him, most have neither the money nor the inclination to have their female genitalia removed. This means that they need to see a physician for routine, annual Pap smears, STD testing and gynecological exams.MORE

And the shit comes from all sides, including the feminist movement as this recent clusterfuck shows:

Lu’s pharmacy:an update

I’ve been hearing about this from friends in Vancouver for a few weeks now, and it would seem according to a note posted to the Facebook group Lu’s Pharmacy Women-Born-Women-Only Policy is Discriminatory & Oppressive, Lu’s pharmacy in Vancouver, BC, has quietly ended their no trans woman policy:

I just wanted to share the good news. Lu’s has de facto removed their women-born women policy! This has been in effect for about two weeks…

Lu’s Pharmacy was opened last summer in Vancouver, BC, by the Vancouver Women’s Health Collective. From its opening the pharmacy had a woman-born-woman policy, which immediately brought negative response from trans and cis activists and agencies in Vancouver’s downtown east side.MORE

Reproductive Justice: Immigrants

Immigration and Reproductive Justice: The Basics PDF Just the Facts: Immigration and Reproductive Justice blogpost

>About 36 million foreign-born people live in the United States as of 2005–12 percent of the U.S. population. Over half of these immigrants are from Latin America, just under one-third are from Asia, 14 percent are from Europe, and the remaining 6 percent are from Africa, North America, and elsewhere. Slightly less than 50 percent of these 36 million immigrants are women, and 95 percent of these women are of childbearing age.

Female immigrants, both documented and undocumented, often work in industries that are low-wage and do not offer health insurance. They may not speak English and are likely to have reduced access to culturally and linguistically competent reproductive health information and services. As a result, access to affordable, quality reproductive health care is of significant concern to these women.

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Reproductive justice involves more than the right to end a pregnancy. Safeguarding an individual’s right to determine her or his own reproductive future is an integral part of an overall agenda to promote social justice. That vision includes the ability of all people, whether American-born or immigrant, to:

1. Become a parent and parent with dignity.
2. Determine whether or when to have children.
3. Have a healthy pregnancy.
4. Have healthy and safe families and relationships.

Rejecting the efforts of comprehensive immigration reform opponents to control the reproductive decisions of immigrant women is an important component of ensuring continued reproductive freedom for all Americans and the humanity of all immigrantsMORE

Pregnant and Shackled: Hard Labor for Arizona’s Immigrants

PHOENIX, Ariz.– Miriam Mendiola-Martinez, an undocumented immigrant charged with using someone else’s identity to work, gave birth to a boy on Dec. 21 at Maricopa Medical Center. After her C-section, she was shackled for two days to her hospital bed. She was not allowed to nurse her baby. And when guards walked her out of the hospital in shackles, she had no idea what officials had done with her childMORE

2009 Article Cirila Baltazar Cruz and The Plight Of The Unworthy

Here’s what we have so far: Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to a baby girl, Rubi Juana, on November 16, 2008, at the Singing River Hospital in Pascagoula, Mississippi. It is, as you might imagine, a predominantly white area. The hospital provided Cruz with a Spanish interpreter. However, Cruz doesn’t speak Spanish; she speaks Chatino, an indigenous language from the Oaxaca region of Mexico. Two days after the birth, the hospital reported the baby as a neglected child to the Department of Human Services, after which Rubi Juana Cruz was promptly taken from her mother and placed in the custody of an affluent couple in Ocean Springs.

According to court records obtained by The Mississippi Clarion-Ledger, the child was deemed neglected in part because Cruz “has failed to learn the English language” which “placed her unborn child in danger and will place the baby in danger in the future”. In addition, the hospital report noted that Cruz “was an illegal immigrant” who was “exchanging living arrangements for sex”.

Of course, it’s a bit of a mystery how they were able to establish these facts when there were apparently no Chatino-speakers on hand. More to the point: it’s irrelevant. I’m no legal expert, but in my understanding, immigration status, language skills, and highly-questionable allegations of sex work are not grounds for snatching a baby from her mother and initiating adoption proceedings. But that’s exactly what’s happening. The case is currently in the Jackson County Youth Court, where Cruz is being represented by the Southern Poverty Law Center. As mentioned, the case is under gag order so it’s been difficult to get updates on the situation and the fate of Rubi Juana remains unknown.

Unfortunately, the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform’s Child Welfare Blog notes:

The case is not unique. In 2005, the Lebanon (Tenn.) Democrat, revealed that, at least twice, a local judge ordered Mexican mothers to learn English — or lose their children forever. [...] In one case the child still lived with the mother, in the other the child was in foster care. In both cases, the mothers spoke an indigenous language rather than Spanish.MORE

Immigrant Narratives: Your Mother or your child? and the site also links to an article that gives us good news, a couple of days ago Ms. Cruz got her child back Mexican immigrant gets baby back from state

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – A Mexican immigrant walked out of the Gartin Justice Building on Friday holding the daughter who had been taken from her by state officials in 2008, when advocates say she was accused of being an unfit mother because she doesn’t speak English.

Cirila Balthazar Cruz and her 1-year-old child, Ruby, were surrounded by Southern Poverty Law Center officials as they left. None of them would discuss details of the case, citing the confidentiality of Youth Court proceedings.MORE

Reproductive Justice: Abortion

via Alas a Blog… My New Job I had SERIOUS trouble deciding what to quote here. So I suggest that you go read. EVERYTHING. Its that important.

So, I’ve taken some of my time at work to learn about this state’s current restrictions on abortion care for minors. How it plays out in the courts is probably very different from how it plays out in your mind, and I wanted to lay out some information I found pretty interesting.

In my state, minors are required to notify their parents. They are not required to have parental consent, only notification. The notification has to occur before the procedure. Both parents have to be notified. There is a judicial bypass procedure, where the minor can go to court and petition a judge to allow her to bypass the requirement for notification. Before working here, that’s about all I knew. Probably that’s all most of you know.

Just because a service is required by law doesn’t mean there is anybody available to provide it… Lots of judges refuse to process judicial bypasses. It’s not a requirement; judges are not forced to take every case presented. Many judges have no idea how to process a judicial bypass — they’ve never been trained.

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The law does not clearly state how to establish maternity or paternity. However, the law does clearly state rather extensive punishments for the clinic or doctor who performs an abortion without having established maternity or paternity of the minor. Thus, clinics may enact excessive bureaucratic measures to ensure beyond any legal doubt that a minor’s parents are actually a minor’s legal parents. So, you can (and do) have the situation where a girl’s mother and father come to the clinic with her, but do not have IDs, social security cards, or birth certificates, so the clinic sends the girl to the courthouse, since she is legally unable to notify her parents, who are standing next to her.Naturally, it gets worse

Another Post about Parental Notification How teens deal with the system as Privileged and Underprivileged and why rape notification laws were never set up by legislators to actually work. And also, the factthat our society is so supremely anti-woman that the damned department that is supposed to carry out the bypass laws to allow for abortions has to hide the fact that they do so.

The Abortion Healthcare Christmas Edition: Everybody Ain’t the Virgin Mary

You see Mary of Nazareth was special. She was unique. She was not like Jezebel the Harlot or Eve the Disobedient who in Pastor Montgomery’s opinion was the primary reason we have sin in the world and why women should sit quietly in the church.

…As a child I thought how amazing it would be to accomplish the ultimate role of a woman which is birthing a baby and still remain pure in the eyes of God, a virgin.

But, of course, I was a deeply wounded girl child who thought these thoughts as a way to survive being a little black girl in my family. I now know as a recovering wounded girl child that conceiving and having a baby as a single black working class woman is not a divine “you are highly favored among all other women” experience. If anything it is the opposite of divine. It is deeply marginalizing. And in society’s eyes it’s downright evil. The worse sin you could ever commit in a white supremacist patriarchal capitalistic society as a black girl or as a black woman is to make hardworking tax payers fund your fatherless child who will probably end up in jail further burdening the good hardworking tax payers. So, I realize that some women by virtue of their class, sexuality, and race could never embody the divinity albeit the “privileges” of Mary of Nazareth. Everybody ain’t the Virgin Mary. Everybody cannot immaculately conceive and then give birth and have their son become the Messiah because some women and their children are not valuable. Some women are figuratively without the divine favor that Mary had making their ability to conceive or not to conceive a political game where current senators and house members can decide to throw them literally under the bus in order to pass a lack luster healthcare bill denying federal funds for abortions. Once again, everybody ain’t the Virgin Mary. As a caveat, I do know the story of Mary and how King Harold (i.e. the State) was hoping to kill her baby (i.e. the Messiah), however, Mary still had God’s divine favor (i.e. white privilege and class privilege) working on her behalf.

Generational shift for U.S. Hispanics on abortion

A 2007 joint survey by the respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Hispanic Center shows that 65 percent of first-generation U.S. Hispanics believe abortion should be illegal. But among second-generation U.S. Hispanics like Ana, that percentage drops to 43 percent.

Not to mention that Nebraska is making getting an abortion ridiculously harder, ostensibly now based on some rather dodgy science about fetal pain, while Utah seems to be out to criminalize miscarriages.

Utah’s “Criminal Miscarriage” law:

* expands the definition of illegal abortion to include miscarriages
* removes immunity protections for women who have or seek illegal abortions
* assumes women are “guilty of criminal homicide of an unborn child” if a pregnancy ends after “intentional, knowing, or reckless” behavior.

But even among states that punish illegal abortions, this “Criminal Miscarriage” law is unique. It doesn’t punish individuals who perform illegal procedures; it punishes women.And yes. It gets worse. LIFE IN PRISON worse.

Reproductive Justice: Fighting the good fight

Reminding us that religion is not only made of the loud and pious rightwing: here’s the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

What are the basic principles guiding the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice?

As people of faith, we

• seek a society that values human life and human dignity and honors individual conscience.

• respect the value of potential human life while remaining firmly committed to women as responsible, moral decision-makers.

• believe the ability to make moral decisions—including about reproductive issues—is the very basis of an individual’s dignity.

• seek to correct the conditions that underlie the high rate of unintended pregnancy and abortion, through responsible sexuality education, affordable family planning services, and high-quality, accessible medical care.

• will continue to protect the right of individuals to follow their own religious views in reproductive decisions and decisions about family formation.

• strive to make justice a reality by furthering the medical, economic, and educational resources necessary for healthy children, families and communities:

Quality, affordable healthcare & insurance

Prenatal & postnatal care, with an emphasis on reducing infant mortality

Quality adoption & foster care services

Education & training for jobs & careers

Good jobs at a living wage

High quality childcare & preschool education

Proper nutrition

Safe, affordable housing

A clean environment

Freedom from violence

Policies that enhance family well-being & give priority to family relationships & needs

Respect in the community & nation for diversity of religious & cultural beliefs & practice>MORE

On Doulas An early linkspam I did on an alternative to hospital births.

ChildBirth.org

A doula…

• Recognizes birth as a key life experience that the mother will remember all her life…
• Understands the physiology of birth and the emotional needs of a woman in labor…
• Assists the woman and her partner in preparing for and carrying out their plans for the birth…
• Stays by the side of the laboring woman throughout the entire labor…
• Provides emotional support, physical comfort measures, an objective viewpoint and assistance to the woman in getting the information she needs to make good decisions…
• Facilitates communication between the laboring woman, her partner and clinical careproviders…
• Perceives her role as one who nutures and protects the woman’s memory of her birth experience.

MORE

Being a Radical Doula:How pro-choice advocacy and birth activism go hand in hand.

When a woman is giving birth in an American hospital, the doctors, nurses, and extended medical team are almost wholly focused on the status of the fetus inside of her–constantly employing technologies to monitor it and drugs to regulate it, allowing fetal well-being to be their dominant concern. When we think of a woman with an unintended pregnancy (and this could be the same woman, in a different phase of her life), a similar logic applies. Anti-choice activists don’t trust women to make responsible decisions about their lives and ability to parent; they instead focus on the potential life inside a woman, and place all emphasis on the future of the fetus rather than on the future of the woman. Anti-choice activism and overly-medicalized birthing practices are both based on a lack of trust in women. Consider the many restrictions imposed on birthing women: rules regulating out-of-hospital midwives, mandatory waiting periods for abortions, forced C-sections, and biased pre-abortion counseling are all examples of how people do not trust women (or their support networks) to make responsible decisions about family well-being.
What is unique about the role of the doula is that she gets to be one of the only people in the birthing process exclusively focused on the woman. She focuses entirely on how the woman is feeling, providing accompaniment and support through a process that can be scary and lonely, particularly in a hospital. Studies show the positive effect that this kind of unconditional support and attention can have on both the mother and her child. That’s the logic that really connects the birthing and the pro-choice movements–if we support women and their decisions, everyone will fare better, including children.MORE

Rest of the Linkspam

From California Latinas for Reproductive Justice …

1. Making the Case for California Latinas’ Reproductive Health and Justice Policy

2. Taking a Stand: Making Health Care Reform Work for Latinas and Women of Color.PDF

Specific Groups that are active

Asian American
SAFIRE

POLISH

Latina/o

California Latinas for Reproductive Justice

Multiracial
SPARK: Reproductive Justice Now! Coalition of orgs. based in Georgia. See their The Georgia Access Guide: Reproductive Health for Reproductive Justice which “provides a listing of hundreds of reproductive health resources through out Georgia. It also provides educational information on reproductive health and justice issues. It is the only guide of its kind in Georgia.”

Sistersongs archive of member and affiliate orgs

The Doula Project “The Doula Project is an NYC-based organization that provides free compassionate care and emotional, physical, and informational support to people across the spectrum of pregnancy.” (Including abortion)

Transpersons Health Care Clinics

Trans Health Initiative

Southern Reproductive Justice and Trans Alliance

Books

Outlaw Midwives Zine

The Prochoice Public Education Project: Reproductive Issues

Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organizing for Reproductive Justice

Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction and the meaning of Liberty

Women of the World: Laws and Policies Affecting Their Reproductive Lives – Latin America and the Caribbean

Conquest: Sexual Violence and the American Indian Genocide

Where Women have no doctor

Film

Silent Choices

Third Wave: The March for Women’s Lives

Blogs and Websites

Living with our fertilty: an alternative approach

Guerrilla Mama Medicine

Young Women’s Empowerment Project

Sistas on the Rise

New Voices Pittsburg Myspace and Facebook

This is of course by no means as comprehensive as it should be. If you have any articles, links or anything else, leave them in the comments, will ya?

Recognition, Codes & Box Office Draw

It is exciting to recognize something, to know what something is supposed to be, even when it’s in a new form, a new medium; even when it is a new interpretation. A lot of my own enjoyment of Batman Begins, for example, was in recognizing batarangs and other devices, as well as recognizing characters. There’s an insider’s kind of glee to see the new interpretation but know what the original looked and sounded like. There’s a bit of that involved in fanfiction as well, reading it and writing it both; though in writing it the fun is in coming up with a new interpretation whether you’re writing an AU or a ‘missed scene’ or a set of continuing adventures.

That Recognition Glee is what’s counted on when Hollywood takes inspiration from somewhere else and brings a book, tv series, comic/graphic novel to life. That’s part of why they bother to do it in the first place; because those who liked/loved it once, will WANT to see a new spin on things. Assuming the movie isn’t meant to round off a series that never properly ended, that is. Still, taking from somewhere else and bringing it to the silver screen is a unique relationship, with hesitances, false starts, supposedly good natured intentions…

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Whatever term they have for it, Hollywood knows all about Recognition Glee & Recognition Rejection. And they’ve been pointing at Recognition Rejection for years when it comes to heroes and leads of colour – except the place they point to keeps changing. First it was ‘The South Won’t Show This & We Will Lose Money‘ and now it’s ‘Middle America Likes To See Itself And It Is White Or We Will Lose Money‘.

“Well we don’t want to upset people, and well, the coloureds should just be glad we’re risking putting them on screen in the first place. Look, we know what we’re doing. We’re putting coloureds in roles we know regular people can expect them in – roles that fit them, fit their place in society. That’ll get people used to seeing them up on the screen. A Chinese person as the hero? With Chinese culture everywhere?! We’d never make movies again! You can’t bring change that quickly,! People just won’t accept it! Hold your horses! Patience is the key here. Patience and calm.”

Now it’s the 21st century and we still have the Mammy/Sassy Confident, The Inscrutable Servant or Villain, The Hot Spicy Cha Cha and all those other stereotypes that ‘fit their place in society‘; those stereotypes that bring their own Recognition Glee – for white viewers and Recognition Rejection, for PoC sick and tired of narrowed and negative associations.

Hollywood might be a place with individual struggling artists. But the people in power aren’t poor struggling producers/movie studio moguls/directors/investors. No. What they are, is soaking in greed and cowardice and have been for so long as an industry they barely know anything different. They’re the ones who created the concepts of the ‘general audience’, and ‘relatability’ as a sugar coat for racism and white superiority. They’re the ones who have the movie industry set up so that equal time equals segregation (black movies, kung fu imports, foreign stuff, foreign brown stuff).

And then, every time Recognition Glee does happen with an audience for a lead/hero of colour, they’re the ones calling the phenomena a one off and an exception.MORE

*sinks back under the wave of essays*

There are other blog posts that I have promised to make. I’m still working on them. In the meantime, here’s a cool blog whose owner has has good links and great blog posts: Feminist Texican

Blogeando: Latinos Are Blogging, Are you Engaging Them?

Lean in close to your screen. I have something to tell you. Latinos use computers. It’s true. Know what else? There are more Latino bloggers than general market bloggers. I didn’t believe it either, but this week has seen a spate of industry reports saying exactly that and more.
Depending on the source, there is anywhere from 5.4 percent to 7.5 percent more Hispanic bloggers than whites in the U.S. The gap is due to the “liberating” effects of new technology, the skill set that online adroitness offers working-class Latinos and stay-at-home moms, and the longstanding cultural value on collectivism over individualism.
Not only are the numbers higher, but blogueros’ communities and commenters are more active and vocal than their general market counterparts. Latinos’ drive to blog is less about grandstanding and more about conversation. (Perez Hilton notwithstanding.)
In a handful of days, a trio of reports confirmed what Hispanic PR professionals have been buzzing about for years. Latinos are online and engaged more than nearly every other group (Asian-Americans are the leaders). AOL and Cheskin released their fascinating and beautifully designed Hispanic Cyberstudy on January 26, a day after BlogWorldExpo rolled out their list of power “blogueros”provided by the founder of LatISM (Latinos in Social Media). Florida State University’s Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication gave us a sneak peek at their forthcoming report about Latinos online.MORe

Intent: It’s fucking Magic!

Today, someone said a slur. It actually doesn’t matter what slur it was, because you see, he didn’t intend to hurt anyone and therefore it couldn’t possibly be a slur. Much like how intent magically protects the actions of all privileged fuckjobs, intent means that anything you say, no matter how many groups it hurts, what awful views it enables, no matter what systemic bigotries it props up through the usage of language that enforces social concepts that crush a marginalized group, it mystically negates all of that.

So if you out a trans woman? Your uncanny intent wraps around her and protects her from murder, harassment, degendering and objectification by the people you just outed her to! If you say something ableist, you’re not actually contributing to the system that demeans PWD because your intent will gird your words with alchemical shields, made of eldritch power themselves, that prevent the words from creating and furthering social associations between disability and being bad, wrong, broken or unwanted! I know? Isn’t it grand? I love magic!MORE

On gender, rape, and media narratives TRIGGER WARNING for RAPE aND ISSUES SURROUNDING IT BELOW THE CUT.

Continue reading »

So much for being the leader of the “free” world. The Supreme Court completely eviscerated our democracy today.

Or, put another way

US ends political campaign spending limits

And considering the fact that net neutrality is highly likely go the way of the dodo, I sincerely doubt I’ll be able to acquire Al Jazeera on youtube if I’m not rich enough to afford the extra cash, don’t you think?

Or, in short…U.S. Supreme Court Makes Corporations Supreme, People Mere Monkeys

At the root of the Court’s attack on popular democracy — and it is an attack, and it will promote if not guarantee rule by unaccountable corporate oligarchy — is the Court’s infamous 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision that said money equals speech. Left unaddressed in today’s decision — and others — is the absurdity of this formula. When money equals speech, outfits with more money have more speech. And that destroys the very principle of free speech.

Ask yourself this question. If you had to persuade your community about political opinion X, but corporations opposed your view, would you stand a chance knowing that their “political speech” was worth much more than your political speech? The answer is obvious. Mere people have been thrown on the scrap heap. The U.S. Supreme Court is lifting corporations to the top of the evolutionary ladder.MORE

Keith Olbermann goes into the ramifications in his inimitable style :Freedom of Speech has been destroyed.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And i thought that those cyberpunk novels were fiction. Good god.

Digby says:

From what I gather, there are only a couple of things to be done about this: shareholder empowerment or constitutional amendment, both of which are very, very difficult.

and Campaign Finance: Back to the Era of the Robber Barons?

Take a hypothetical homeland security bill. Many people don’t know that Wal-Mart actively campaigns against tighter screening of cargo containers fearing that increased inspections will slow its supply lines. Yet many experts cite 100 percent screening of containers to be a necessary step in protecting our homeland against a terrorist attack. So what happens when a politician with a strong dedication to security matters but who has been bankrolled by Wal-Mart needs to vote on a bill that includes increased container screening? It’s not hard to imagine him rejecting such legislation to ensure Wal-Mart’s support in his re-election campaign.

This kind of political quid pro quo — trading campaign contributions for votes — is a serious concern in our current political climate. Just think how much worse it will be when corporations are free to spend whatever they like.

But even beyond the quid pro quo concerns is the firm belief, shared by multitudes, that more money in our political system is not the direction we should be headed. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) told me recently that the pressure on members of Congress to raise money is already worse than it’s ever been — and she’s been in the House for 26 years. Kaptur talked of one congressman who spent 90 percent of his time on the telephone fundraising. The obvious question becomes: How the heck did he get anything done? If the Supreme Court rules the way it’s expected to, situations like this will only get worse.

Those in favor of turning back the restrictions assert that special interests are simply groups of individuals advocating a particular issue or candidate, and that restricting what they can spend in this endeavor is the same as limiting their speech. But this is a specious argument. Rolling back campaign finance regulations would result not only in increased political influence by special interests and politicians spending too much time fundraising, but also in a huge increase in negative political ads, as well as the possibility — if not the probability — of increased corruption, and thus even more cynicism about our political system.MORE

As I think about it more…say goodbye to stopping global warming. In fact, bring it on!!! And there go environmental regulations!! And our food system will be going STRAIGHT to hell. No pass go, do not collect $200. Let us not even begin to think of the effects on the rest of the world. Remember how corporations did nasty things to Latin America with the full backing of the US gov’t? Does anyone think that they will stop now? Bolivia for instance, is already under pressure for its lithium.

And if you want to hate Justice Thomas even more: Justice Thomas, Citizens United and Those Scary Gay People

Plus, get to know The Man who took down Campaign Finance Reform

Christ. There’s a reason why I hated reading dystopian novels. I am not happy with the prospect of the plot of one coming to life before my very eyes.

Chris Matthews is on my tv carefully saying how much Haiti’s problems are due to its politics. He is also congratulating the US on how much its image will be burnished because of how quickly it is responding to the crisis. Really. Yes, really. And aren’t we the greatest country in the world?

And most of the reporters that are on my tv are emphasizing how poor and desperate Haiti’s people were before the quake. And how sad isn’t it, that this country has never been able to get its act together oh my! But don’t worry, America’s there to save them now. And aren’t we the greatest country in the world? And not ONE of the assholes has mentioned that the United States and the French were and are a main cause of the poverty, and dictatorship and blood shed. Let me just add to the education going on all over lj and dreamwidth What the US owes Haiti

In 1801, Thomas Jefferson – an owner of 180 slaves himself – became the third President of the United States. Jefferson, who was deeply troubled by the slaughter of plantation owners in St. Domingue, feared that the example of African slaves fighting for their liberties might spread northward.

“If something is not done, and soon done,” Jefferson wrote about the violence in St. Domingue in 1797, “we shall be the murderers of our own children.”

So, in 1801, the interests of Napoleon and Jefferson temporarily intersected. Napoleon was determined to restore French control of St. Domingue and Jefferson was eager to see the slave rebellion crushed.

Through secret diplomatic channels, Napoleon asked Jefferson if the United States would help a French army traveling by sea to St. Domingue. Jefferson replied that “nothing will be easier than to furnish your army and fleet with everything and reduce Toussaint [L’Ouverture] to starvation.”MORE

Catastrophe in Haiti

During the Cold War, the U.S. supported the dictatorships of Papa Doc Duvalier and then Baby Doc Duvalier–which ruled the country from 1957 to 1986–as an anti-communist counterweight to Castro’s Cuba nearby.

Under guidance from Washington, Baby Doc Duvalier opened the Haitian economy up to U.S. capital in the 1970s and 1980s. Floods of U.S. agricultural imports destroyed peasant agriculture. As a result, hundred of thousands of people flocked to the teeming slums of Port-au-Prince to labor for pitifully low wages in sweatshops located in U.S. export processing zones.MORE

Why is Haiti so poor and Hidden from the Headlines: the US war against Haiti and  Democracy Now:US Policy in Haiti Over Decades “Lays the Foundation for Why Impact of Natural Disaster Is So Severe” and Haiti and the global food crisis and What you are not hearing about Haiti (but should be) Really, former US diplomat??!!? REALLY?????? and IMF to Haiti: Freeze Public Wages.

Now, in its attempts to help Haiti, the IMF is pursuing the same kinds of policies that made Haiti a geography of precariousness even before the quake. To great fanfare, the IMF announced a new $100 million loan to Haiti on Thursday. In one crucial way, the loan is a good thing; Haiti is in dire straits and needs a massive cash infusion. But the new loan was made through the IMF’s extended credit facility, to which Haiti already has $165 million in debt. Debt relief activists tell me that these loans came with conditions, including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public employees except those making minimum wage and keeping inflation low. They say that the new loans would impose these same conditions. In other words, in the face of this latest tragedy, the IMF is still using crisis and debt as leverage to compel neoliberal reforms.

(I pause here to let loose a hearty FUCK YOU! in the IMF’s direction. The blasted parasites!)
But aren’t we the greatest country in the world? So generous! And they’ll pay us back! After all, this is such an opportunity to further exploit them! Oh come now, I hear you say. Those are just the far rightwing you say? We expect that from them! Oh yeah?

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And how was your holiday season? I hope it was as enjoyable as mine. May your new year be filled with much joy and not much sorrow. In the meantime:

Feminism Fail

Perhaps it is time for women to examine whether the largest organizations that claim to represent them are really delivering on their promises.

They’ve failed to organize the millions of supporters they have into a coherent and powerful movement. ‘Cause when your movement looks like an amateur mess compared with the “keep your government hands off my Medicare” teabaggers, you’re doing something wrong.

They’ve failed to frame the debate and influence how we talk about issues that affect women’s lives. While they’re still arguing about “choice” — a word that persuades no one and narrowly focuses the conversation on abortion instead of the full spectrum of reproductive health — opponents are thinking up clever new phrases to use incessantly and force into the public consciousness until they become law. “Partial birth abortion.” “Rights of the preborn.” “Culture of life.”

They’ve failed to make women’s rights a legislative priority for the very representatives they help send to Congress. And if their supposed allies don’t worry about losing support of the feminist organizations, certainly their opponents don’t lose a lot of sleep over invoking the almighty wrath of the feminists. What’s the worst they can do? Organize another march? Hey, that might actually be great news for Republicans!

They’ve failed to adapt their movement and their message to a new era and a new generation of would-be feminists. Where are the bumper sticker slogans, the tactics, the refreshed, revised 21st century approach to a problem as old as time? Are they using the internet for anything more than urgent emails and processing donations? Where are the clever YouTube videos by a new generation of feminists talking about how this or that bill affects them? Where is the television presence? Where are the bloggers? (Oh, there are plenty of feminist bloggers out there, but they’re not being supported or promoted or elevated by the feminist organizations, who still think the internet is primarily for sending email. For example, guess who the “featured blogger” on Emily’s List is? Why, it’s Ellen Malcolm, the president.) MORE

The Abortion Healthcare Christmas Edition: Everybody Ain’t the Virgin Mary

And, so the health care questions for women of color are: Who should I choose? Should I support a “lackluster” healthcare bill that will insure additional Americans? Or, should I choose women and their ability to have access to affordable abortions? And of course for women of color this is not an easy choice because on one level we know that more people of color lack access to healthcare. However, we also know the historical and current struggles (i.e. forced sterilizations, unaffordable abortions, state unethical use of Norplant) for reproductive health for women of color meaning that we know any encroachment on the ability of a woman to choose what is right for her body be it by law or by affordability is quite damaging for our struggles to ensure reproductive freedom for women of color (i.e. the ability to have a child and to terminate a pregnancy).MORE

I saw the movie Precious, but what about her mother, Mary?

TRIGGER WARNING. TRIGGER WARNING. TRIGGER WARNING. Really really nasty case of what a family’s transphobia can lead to: is a dream a lie if it don’t come true / or is it something worse

Goodbye Mary Daly-And Please Take The Transphobia With You

How To Respectfully Cover A News Story Involving A Trans Person

Passing, revisited

What Happens Across The Diaspora IS My Business

Crossing My Fingers For The Future

The Americanization of Mental Illness

Project 880 vs Avatar

Spotlight on the Forbidden Topic

Spotlight on the Forbidden Topic: Part Two

Alternatives to Marriage Project

Making an Immigrant “good”

Should the goal of immigration be assimilation?

A new year without her daughter:Update on the Angelina Hassel Case

Sex conference, What happens at the sex conference does not stay at the sex conference, Part 2: One man’s diversity is another man’s Klan Rally and The Future and Sexuality of Communities of Color