antichoice

Hell Is In Poland: Pregnancy, Power and Protest

Ida Covcin talks about growing up in Poland and what that meant for her ideas about and experiences with sex and possible pregnancy, and participating in the powerful abortion bans that have taken place there over the last few years.

Impurity Culture: Learning to Support Reproductive Rights When Your Religion Doesn't

Hello. I’m glad you’re here. I first just want you to know that I see you. I see you showing up here and maybe elsewhere, trying to learn, being open to new information and being willing to change and to grow. Intelligence, Stephen Hawking famously reminded us, is the ability to adapt to change. You’re smart, you’re doing your best and I believe in you. I know what it’s like to go your whole life being told one thing is true only to find out that actually, it isn’t. That’s happened to me so many times, on so many different topics, I’ve lost count. I know what it’s like to feel angry and disillusioned. I felt angry and disillusioned, too, when I began to realize that what I had been told about abortion was a lie.

Why I Escort

I am a volunteer abortion clinic escort. This means I am there to walk with women coming into the abortion clinic. It's usually no more than a minute's walk from their cars to the front door of the clinic. Under normal circumstances, my help would hardly be needed. Except the circumstances outside an abortion clinic are rarely "normal."

What We've Lost & Why We Stay

All of us who work at clinics that provide abortion, or as abortion or reproductive rights educators or advocates know we do so at substantial risk. Women who come to our clinics as clients also know that they, too, may be at risk. The slaying of Dr. Tiller yesterday is tragic and upsetting, but it is not surprising or new. We didn’t become scared for the first time yesterday. We’ve always been scared, and we have always had cause to be scared.

The murder of Dr. George Tiller at his church yesterday morning -- based on the information we have so far – was domestic terrorism, and terrorism which has been known and prevalent for some time.

A Correction, an Apology and a Hard Object Lesson on CPCs

In an advice answer on Crisis Pregnancy Centers here at Scarleteen, and also reprinted for my column at RH Reality Check, I originally included a link to a hotline -- the American Pregnancy Helpline -- as one option for women looking for support with a pregnancy they wanted to sustain rather going than to a CPC.

I unfortunately, and very unintentionally, proved my own point in the piece too well.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Harm, Not Help

Anonymous
asks:
I heard about a really good organization that helps girls who are pregnant and don't want an abortion. It's called Birthright. I have seen one in my town, but I can't find it on your site. Do you have any information about Birthright or stuff about the way the baby is developing so that we can find out more about our options?...

Sometimes, there just aren't words.

When this press release from the American Life League passed by my desk this evening, I couldn't even wave my usual fist, sigh my usual sigh, or give a good barbaric yawp. Screeds like this often leave me in that space, bizarrely feeling like I've been somehow redeposited in time to the McCarthy Era, but this one was a real doozy: I feel like someone dosed my dinner.

"We're Celebrating - And Planned Parenthood Knows Why, Says American Life League

WASHINGTON, July 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is an op-ed by Jim Sedlak, American Life League:

Watch Your Reproductive Rights Vanish Right Before Your Very Eyes!

It's hard enough to stomach this administration's claims of a "War on Terror," when fighting that war (as if that wasn't ironic enough already) involves taking water and work away from civilians, and thousands of deaths and injuries for Iraqis and American soldiers alike.

But when, today, the Supreme Court negated federal protections for abortion clinics against violence, when the Bush administration supported a "pro-life" group with a validated history of a wide scope of clinic violence, including bombings (again with the irony), all one could really ask oneself was...

Have a miscarriage... go to jail?

As you may or may not know, most miscarriages are about the human body being incredibly smart and humane: miscarriage, especially early miscarriages which often go unnoticed by many women (to the point that they're assumed to be normal periods, and the women were unaware they were even pregnant), is basically the body's way of naturally terminating births which will generally just not result in full-term, live or healthy births.