Lingual Tremors

Whither Goes Roe...New York Need Not Follow

Our good friends, the ivied nonet of justice, in their April 2007 decision to uphold the Federal Abortion Ban, paved the way for an assault on reproductive health.  Under the Bush administration, we have seen unprecedented, in a post Roe world, bans and restrictions on abortion. 

New York's Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection Act, introduced by Governor Spitzer, would guarantee New York's pro-choice stance, regardless of federal restrictions.

Why do we need such legislation?  NARAL New York's fact sheet explains:

"In 1970, New York introduced one of the first laws in the United States decriminalizing abortion. New York modified its penal code and made it legal for doctors to perform abortions.

The law was visionary then, but today it is outdated and confusing. Current law does not contain the foundations upon which Roe was decided, including the fundamental right of women to make private medical decisions, nor does it take into account how abortion care is now provided. Much has changed since the 1970’s, and New York needs an up-to-date law that protects a woman’s fundamental right to abortion. 

The Reproductive Health and Privacy Protection will codify New York’s longstanding support of reproductive freedom, while ensuring that New York State is prepared if the right to choose is threatened by a weakening of Roe or further federal encroachments."

This legislation is critical to ensure continued access to reproductive medicine for New York's women.  This legislation will also ensure that New York would remain a safe haven for women. 

How can you help?
1.  Inform yourself about the act and the protections it would provide.
2.  Talk about it with your friends, family, colleagues.
3.  Volunteer to help NARAL
4.  Give money to NARAL New York
For more information on actions you can take, click here.

Here's a new video about the importance of the act:

Roe's My Favorite Bitch. I Mean. Blog for Choice, 2008.

So, it's 35 years of Roe v. Wade today.  Here in the feminist blogosphere, we're all thinking about what voting pro-choice means.

And, let's face it.  Nothing brings out the feminist manifesta in me than Blog for Choice Day.  Nothing gets my cervix in a knot more than waking up to NPR's "homage" to Roe (i.e. the latest set of attacks against Roe).  So, grab a cuppa joe and settle in for a little classic LX ranting (yes, mom, this is a rated "R" post...).  'Cause hey:  if I can't say it here, where can I say it?

So, all day today, I've been lightly dreading this post.  Regular readers here at Chez Lingual know that I am, without question, a feminist, pro-choice blogger.  (Newbie visitors!  Welcome!  Regarding the previous sentence:  please see the categories of "Radical Uterus" and "Stepford Wife in Training" to your left for further evidence...)  But, how many more ways can I say it?  Oh, sure, I can lean lightly over to the bookshelf of feminist wisdom and quote everyone from Margaret Sanger to Kate Michelman, but at the end of the day:  who is really listening?  Do you really want me to quote Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale AGAIN?  AGAIN?  AGAIN?

And see, on the very surface of things, this is where I find Barack Obama attractive.  Aren't you sick of the continual clash of the left and the right?  Aren't you sick of FOX News vs. NPR vs. The New York Times vs. The National Review vs. Pacifica vs. NBC?  Wouldn't it be great if we could all get along?  Wouldn't it be great if Obama and McCain brought beer?  A really great beer with bottled beer taste in a can?  (Oh sorry--that's another post...)

But here's the thing:  abortion isn't like an eco-friendly Hummer (okay--we all know that an eco-friendly Hummer isn't really eco-friendly, but you get the point). 

Let me say that again.  Abortion isn't an eco-friendly Hummer. 

There's no real place to meet in the middle.  Taxes?  Maybe.  War?  Possibly.  Health care?  The Economy?  Sure!  We agree that those are serious, vote-worthy issues, even though we don't agree how to address the.  But abortion?  The two sides of the abortion wars are perpetually divided, a political schism the size of the San Andreas fault running through the very foundation of this country.  We can't just all get along.   

Over at Salon.com, Rebecca Traister writes in the introduction to her interviews with feminists on the importance of Roe:

I wish it were possible to raise a glass, give a birthday toast, and claim that Roe didn't look a day over 29, but alas, this is a bittersweet bash. A mere three and half decades after her birth, Roe shows her age: She's been weakened, knocked around, had big bites taken out of her.

Now, I take umbrage at the fact that 35 is old.  Those of us in our 30s know that we're just hitting our stride...  But here's the thing:  America is a cruel and perverted daddy ready to encourage us to show a little skin and then to beat us for having sex.  America is peering through the keyhole of our bedroom, enjoying what he sees, and getting ready to lecture us about it later.

America likes its little girls full of sexual promise.  Think about Jonbenet Ramsey's already sexual pout, hands on hips, full of intent.  Want a poster child for what's wrong with women's roles in the United States?  Look at the Britney Spears debacle of motherhood.  When she was in her naughty school girl uniform, showing just enough skin America drooled in front of the television.  While she was slithering around 3/4 naked on stage with a snake, America licked the screen.  When she graduated to leather, America jacked off in the corner.  And now that she's a mother?  An unfit mother?  She's bitch-slapped with every insult possible.

The fight over choice amounts to this:  America wants you to have sex.  No lap dances.  No titty fucks.  America wants you to have good, old fashioned, full penetration sex.  Lots of it.  And then America wants you to pay for it.  Literally.

It's all well and good that the conservative movement wants to talk about "pro-life" and saving babies.  But at the end of the day, is any compassionate conservatism actually motivated by some real sense of biblical justice?  I ask this, with all sincerity, who would Jesus bomb? 

So, here's my point:  sure, we can talk about patriarchy.  We can talk about women's rights over their own bodies.  We can talk about the woman's body as a public possession.  We can talk about when life begins.  We can talk politics.  We can talk religion.  We can talk philosophy.  Those are all valid points.  Those are all important points.  But, perhaps, we also need to talk about money.  Because really, aren't conservative arguments in the U.S. always about money?  Here's a tagline for you:  Ain't nobody nowhere making Enron-style money off of an abortion clinic.  Ain't no off shore bank accounts accruing "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" kinds of cash from the economics of abortions.

Here's the question:  why vote pro-choice?  For the same reasons that you vote for things like national health care plans or to end the war or to really fund education.  Because no one is going to give you those things.  We live in a capitalist country run by money.  And nothing talks money like a beautiful, bouncing baby.  MSNBC offers helpful tips on "Raising Your Quarter-Million Dollar Baby."  Here's a chilling quote:

For 2004, the newest data available, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that families making $70,200 a year or more will spend a whopping $269,520 to raise a child from birth through age 17. Higher-income families in urban areas in the West spend the most, $284,460.

Though not as steep, the figures for lower-income families are just as unsettling: $184,320 for families earning $41,700 to $70,200 and $134,370 for families making less than that. That breaks down to nearly $15,000 a year from birth to age 2 for families in the $65,800 -plus income bracket. As your child ages, he or she gets even more expensive, topping out at $15,810 from ages 15 to 17. This is no back-of-the-envelope guesstimate. The survey involves visits to, and interviews with, about 5,000 households, four times a year.

That's for 1 kid, to age 18.  Read:  no college.  It's in the conservative best interest to have middle-class families making as many babies as possible.  Think:  bigger houses, more bedrooms!  Health care premiums!  Diapers!  Formula!  Day Care!  Day Care!  Day Care!  Private School Vouchers!  And don't forget about the strollers!  (You will die if you don't buy the best buggy in town...).  Don't even get me started on student loans.  I could go on and on and on...

Now, I'm not actually saying you shouldn't have kids.  If you want kids, go for it.  Do it.  Be a good parent.  Be good parents.  Be intentional.  Be loving.  But, here's the thing:  your government wants you to have a kid only because it's good for the economy.  If we lived under a government that really cared about kids, then kids would have universal health care.  Kids would have great schools.  Parents would have good day care programs or wouldn't have to have two parents working just to scrape by.  Children's services would be functional and well-funded.  Parents would be supported. 

But here's my point:  we don't live in that world.  And in the same way that you can't really have an eco-friendly Hummer, you can't have a world where kids don't have health care, but you have to have a kid. 

When you vote, the issues are all connected.  And, at the end of the day?  It's the poor and the middle class, brandishing their swords against the rich.  We may talk a good game of democracy and hope and change.  But, no one is going to change the world for you.  You're going to have to get up, go to the voting booth, and do it with everyone else who believes what you believe. 

You're going to have to stand and fight because at the end of the day, it's not in America's best interest to let you make your own decisions.  It's much better to dupe you into thinking that, in post 9/11 Bush eloquence, that the single best thing you can do after a horrific terrorist attack literally stops the nation, you should shop.  Or have a baby.  Whatever.  Just keep that money flowing.

Why am I voting pro-choice?  Because I believe that America needs sexual rehab.  America needs a reality check.  I have to fight to make America about more than money.  I want to get America off the couch and into the soup kitchen.  I want to get America into a philosophy course.  An ethics course.  I want America to stop bombing things.  I want a truly changed America.  And for me, that's an America where every kid is a wanted kid.  That's an America where parents want to be parents.  I want an America that really cares about its kids.

You remember your high school self.  You might have had good SAT scores.  Maybe you were a National Merit Scholar.  Maybe you were average.  Maybe you were a band geek.  Maybe you were a prom queen. Maybe you dated the prom queen.  Whatever.  The point is:  we all had our mirror-obsessive moments of "am I cute enough?"  "Will they like me?"  But, that's the stuff of childhood.

The great thing about 30 is that we've all learned a lot.  Men, women.  We're smarter in our 30s than we were in our 20s, in our teens.

So, hey.  Let's rewrite Roe.  Let's make her sassy, with a touch of gray in her hair.  Let's make her old enough to say what's really on her mind.  Let's make Roe the proud mother of 2.  Let's make Roe bold and strong.  Let's make her a leader.  Let's make her a bitch.  Let's help Roe with a new motto:  "Let's fuck shit up."  Let's make Roe a Margaret Thatcher "winner takes all" kind of woman.  Let's take Roe all the way, baby.  Let's make Roe a grandma and great-grandma and great-great-grandma who loves to wear purple and escort women into clinics.  Let's vote Roe president.

Happy birthday Roe.  You're my favorite bitch in town.

Kisses and hugs,

Lingual X

Read on!

New Faces:

• The Curvature
• Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome
• Canned Peaches
• Kittywampus
• Inspired Faith, Effective Action
• Stinky Lulu

The Feminist Faithful:

• Angry Black Bitch
• Feminist Law Profs

Aw, heck.  Just go read them all for yourself!  The WHOLE List of 2008 Blog for Choice bloggers...

And, check out Salon.com's special feature on 35 years...

And, of course, a trip down memory lane:
My 2006 Blog for Choice Post
My 2007 Blog for Choice Post

Planned Parenthood NYC Fundraiser 7/18

Do you really need a better reason to support Planned Parenthood than sangria and a hot July night?

3^rd Annual Summer, Sex and Spirits

Cocktails and Shopping for a Good Cause

Date:  7/18/2007 from 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Place:  Sugar
311 Church Street
New York, NY

Planned Parenthood of New York City (PPNYC), in conjunction with Brooklyn Indie Market, presents the third annual Summer, Sex and Spirits fundraiser for an evening of mixing and mingling with retail therapy!

Brooklyn Indie Market will create a boutique like atmosphere showcasing one-of-a kind and independent label goods, including handbags, jewelry, womenswear, childrenswear, homegoods, and much, much more!  A portion of the evening's sales and all ticket proceeds go directly to Planned Parenthood. 

Tickets are only $20!  Here's what's waiting for you at our event:

• $4 drink specials including wine, beer, and mixed drinks!
• 1/2 price sangria pitchers!
• Live DJ!
• A chance to win a Mystery Prize!

Please join us from 5-7:00 for fabulous drink specials, and stay late to indulge in guilt free shopping with 10% of sales benefiting Planned Parenthood!  This event helps raise important funds for our vital mission of clinical services, education, and advocacy.  When you buy tickets to this event, you are helping us to continue to help the thousands of New Yorkers who count on us each year.  Let's celebrate the summer together with a toast, all the while supporting a great cause!

www.brooklynindiemarket.com

www.sugarnyc.com

Global Abortion

From the Center for Reproductive Rights, here is an interesting comparative look at the accessibility of abortions in the global community.  For a country-by-country breakdown, including categories and typeps of abortions permitted, click here.   The green zones represent the countries with the least restrictive access.  I was surprised at how large that area is. 

Accountability: Making People Do Their Jobs

It's about time.  Carolyn Maloney and Frank Lautenberg introduced cutting edge legislation on Wednesday, 6 June 2007-- (was the name, the ABC act, an inspired reference to the ABC (abstinence, be faithful, use condoms) approach to AIDS education?) to ensure women's access to birth control.  You can read the entire Access to Birth Control legislation here.  I'm delighted to see some movement on this key issue for women.  The announcement from Maloney's website says, "In addition to guaranteeing women the ability to fill birth control prescriptions, the “ABC” Bill would make it illegal for a pharmacy to refuse to return a birth control prescription, or for a pharmacist to intimidate, threaten, or harass customers, or intentionally breach, or threaten to breach, medical confidentiality."

What you need to do:

Contact your legislators (click here to check who your representatives are).  This is an election year, folks, let's make that pressure count!

Read more:

NOW's press release.

Common Dreams

National Women's Law Center

NOW's Action Center

More Blogging for Choice

Jill at Feministe has the best "Why I'm Pro-Choice" blog post up yet...

Why I'm Pro-Choice: Don't Argue Morality with Me...

Well folks, it's the 34th anniversary of a little revolution known as Roe v. Wade here in the perpetually embattled United States.  And, in honor of that day, NARAL has declared today Blog for Choice Day asking bloggers to address "Why I'm Pro-Choice."

I have been pro-choice for as long as I can remember, but in the past seven years, this issue has taken on much more immediacy for us as a society as the Bush Administration has consistently worked to erode the legal protections of Roe v. Wade.  I've written a lot about choice, and you can read more of those postings in "Blogging for Choice," "Radical Uterus" and "Stepford Wife in Training."  To start my post today, I decided to take a temporal approach to today's topic, situating my response in our current social and historical context.   

Here are the top 22 reasons why I'm Pro-Choice today:

• Because under the separation of church and state I believe our laws should not reflect the religious biases of a minority of fundamentalist religious groups;
• Because this government cannot explain the hypocritical morality of legally sanctioning capital punishment but restricting a woman's right to have an abortion;
• Because this government cannot explain the hypocritical morality of legally sanctioning death and destruction through acts of war but restricting a woman's right to have an abortion;
• Because we have not yet realized anything close to gender equality in the United States;
• Because forced domesticity has historically served to limit women's access to self-determination and power;
• Because there are currently 16 women out of 100 Senators in the U.S. Senate making decisions about women's lives.  The other 84 will never be pregnant;
• Because since 1789, there have been a total of 35 women Senators out of 1,895 total U.S. Senators.  The other 1860 never were or never will be pregnant;
• Because there are 74 women out of 435 Congressional Representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The other 361 are never going to be pregnant;
• Because I believe that having a child should be an intentional, loving decision;
• Because I was raised in a home where my parents made the loving decision to parent 2 children who they conceived and 2 children who they adopted and our family life has been blessed by their intentional decision to be parents;
• Because parenting involves more than the act of giving birth, it's a life-long commitment and sacrifice;
• Because I was raised in a home where I was given accurate information about sex and contraception;
• Because, in as much as abortion is a religious/moral issue for me (BUT IS NOT A RELIGIOUS ISSUE FOR ALL WOMEN), I refuse to accept my theology from the U.S. government;
• Because I can have a child easier than I can get a gun;
• Because our society sends powerful messages through popular culture and consumerism about women's sexualized bodies while our government and our schools limit young men's and women's scientifically accurate information about sex and contraception;
• Because I watch The Nanny and see many people who are truly unhappy because they have bought into the cultural expectations that "everyone" has to be a parent;
• Because we are now seeing the 1st generation of young men and women becoming sexually active who lived through "abstinence only" education and who are sexually illiterate;
• Because making abortion illegal always has been and always will be a form of punishment for the poor (middle and upper-class women always have access to abortions, legal or not);
• Because this government would rather fund war than education;
• Because this government would rather fund war than day care;
• Because this government would rather fund war than health care;
• Because I have never had to make the decision to have an abortion;

Many people argue that abortion is a moral issue.  I'd like to suggest that ultimately, all laws are moral issues because laws are a slow-moving reflection of our social & historical morality (how long did it take for the Civil Rights Amendment to pass?).  Laws, in some sense, are a larger reflection of our collective morality.  So let me challenge the moral and, to some extent, philosophic arguments about abortion.  I would like to live in a society where I didn't have to argue about a woman's right to choose and in fact, I can imagine a society in which abortions wouldn't be necessary. 

Let's Get This Party Started...Calling all NYC Readers to a Little Fundraiser!

The Atlantic Monthly features a report by Jeffrey Rosen entitled "The Day After Roe" that chillingly predicts a national schism the likes of the Civil War.  Let's keep sending the message that Roe is not up for compromise.  Come on out for the Benefit for South Dakota.  Proceeds benefit Cecelia Fire Thunder & Planned Parenthood of America.  $10.00 at the door in Park Slope:

Motherhood: An Instrument of the State?

Have a baby.  Get a medal.  Sometimes nationalism is that easy.  8 kids= a gold medal, 5-7 kids= silver, 4 kids=bronze

It's a quantifiable patriotism and a clear message:  breed for the state.

(Photo via No Beliefs)

I went to D.C. this week to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.  I've been there before and I highly recommend it to one and all.  It's an amazing meditation on the Holocaust and ways that Hitler irrevocably altered our understanding of the world.  Since I'd seen the permanent collection before, I had a chance to spend time in the Deadly Medicine exhibit. 

Sometimes, in depth exhibits like this allow me to put a variety of theoretical and practical politics into play because they allow me to revisit a "known" topic, for example eugenics, in a different way and with a specific focus  (the older I get, the more I love metonym--scrutinizing the part to better understand the whole) . 

While the Deadly Medicine focused on eugenics, and in part on the T-4 program to euthanize the mentally retarded and physically handicapped, there was a tiny, but chilling part of the exhibit that focused on German women as mothers.  Since this blog often comments on the relationship between womanhood and state, I found the exhibit fascinating in light of my previous post, "Forever Vessel." 

While the comparison necessarily comes up short at a certain point, the construction of German women as mothers who literally embody the state had some chilling lessons for women living in the United States today.

Perpetual Vessel: Pre-pregnancy healthcare for all!

(Michael Colgan)

Several people have already blogged about the "Forever Pregnant" article in the Washington Post, but I can't help adding to the din of the bloggosphere on this one.  I heard about the article yesterday morning, but never got back to a computer, so I stewed about it all day. January W. Payne of the Washington Post reports:

New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.

Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.

Planned Parenthood: The Right Tools for the Job

Check out Amanda's (Pandagon) great analysis of a new Planned Parenthood ad:

Planned Parenthood has a new ad that I’m sure most of you’ll enjoy where a young woman is working construction and a voiceover says something like, “My father always told me to use the right tool for the right job,” and she goes home and strips down, jumps in bed with her boyfriend and reaches for a condom. In the space of a short commercial, you therefore have these elements:

• A suggestion that women can and should do “men’s” work if they want to
• The notion that some fathers actually support and aren’t threatened by having daughters who do “men’s” work
• The fact that there’s no conflict between women having ambition and having a healthy appetite for sex
• The idea that women can enjoy sex for reasons other than a pious need to make a baby

Abstinence Avenger: Your Nighttime Bed Buddy!

Via Mind the Gap (hat tip!), I invite you to visit these *wonderful* posters for abstinence education.  I couldn't agree more with Winter that "Abstinence Avenger" is my favorite.

A few thoughts on this.  First, today, I had a disagreement with a random (and IGNORANT!) woman who objected to a new New York state campaign called Get the Facts New York.  This group is working to get medically accurate, age appropriate sex education into New York schools.  Kids are having sex.  So, let's give them the information they need to make healthy choices and to keep safe.  A Planned Parenthood Fact Sheet on Abstinence-only education reports:

Abstinence-only sexuality education doesn't work.  There is little evidence that teens who participate in abstinence-only programs abstain from intercourse longer than others. When they do become sexually active, though, they often fail to use condoms or other contraceptives. Meanwhile, students in comprehensive sexuality education classes do not engage in sexual activity more often or earlier, but do use contraception and practice safer sex more consistently when they become sexually active (AGI, 2003; Jemmott, et al., 1998; Kirby, 1999; Kirby, 2000; NARAL, 1998).

The U.S. has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the developed world, and American adolescents are contracting HIV faster than almost any other
demographic group. The teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. is at least twice that in Canada, England, France, and Sweden, and 10 times that in the Netherlands. Experts cite restrictions on teens' access to comprehensive sexuality education, contraception, and condoms in the U.S., along with the widespread American attitude that a healthy adolescence should exclude sex. By contrast, the "European approach to teenage sexual activity, expressed in the form of widespread provision of confidential and accessible contraceptive services to adolescents, is . . . a central factor in explaining the more rapid declines in teenage childbearing in northern and western European countries" (Singh & Darroch, 2000).

My opponent, of course, thinks that abstinence only is the way to go.  I might buy her a copy of the abstinence avenger poster.  Hee hee.

Next, google this:  "sexual dysfunction marriage" and see what you get.  I got 1,440,000 hits on my search.  Not only are we not equipping teens for a healthy sex life now, we're underpreparing them for healthy future sexual relationships.  Abstinence-only education doesn't help teens become healthy sexual adults;  instead, it retards their natural sexual development by shaming them about their sexual desires and urges, pathologizing sex.  (It does, however, make a profit for sex therapists everywhere!). 

Late night cyberhopping: visit other blogs!

Hop on over to Demiorator for these two great posts:

Rumsfeld-zilla

and

Pronoid

Bitch Ph.D. has a nice post today on feminism, relationships and blogging

Evil Librul Overlord on David Hager and the like

Feminist Carnival 12

Echidne on the horribly creepy father/daughter chastity key!  YUCK!

and Libby's guest post at Mad Melancholic Feminista on Feminism and Confusion

Abortion--Global Issues

Head on over to Echidne of the Snakes for a well-written, beautiful meditation on abortion in El Salvador.  Here's a quick taste ( I particularly like the section about "living in the little gaps and ruptures of the society) :

Two thoughts swam to the surface of my mind after reading the article. The first one was the whole atmosphere it provoked: one of secrecy, of women quietly living in the little gaps and ruptures of the society, of horrible events inexplicably happening to them. All this smelled familiar to me, and I realized that this is what many books and interviews of the pre-abortion era described. A kind of numb, unquestioning powerlessness of women, where real power is replaced by either legal rules or private rituals, where power is invisible and outside and something that just is, where the real culprits are not pointed out or held to scrutiny, where change is something that happens from the outside. It could be that it's the writer who provokes these feelings but I suspect it's the people he interviews. Traditional societies tend to do this to women. Whatever the faults of modernity might be, at least we have aired these dank and hidden corners of powerlessness and its subterfuges.

Here's a link to the New York Times Magazine "Pro-Life Nation" Echidne is responding to (also linked from her response to the article).

Bitch, Ph.D. also responds to the article here.

Of Patriotic Babies and Other Madness

This, I get:

(Brought to you via Superman TV)

And, of course, this, I don't:

(Brought to you via Nrlc.org)

Whilst I am often an ambivalent patriot at best--American by birth, not by choice, I cannot help but recognize the powerful idea of "The United States" for my largely immigrant students.  And so, I "get" the Superman image.  I get the idea of patriotism and power merged together.  Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay made me a comic book convert (well, okay, not full fledged--but I DO love graphic novels), it also helped me to understand the relationship between comic book icons and national identities in a way that I had totally dismissed before.

However, babies wrapped in flags?  For kicks, try doing a google search for any of the following search strings:  patriotic baby, baby wrapped in American flag, or American flag baby.  This morning, I was looking for patriotic images for a poem I am working on.  I often like to work in the ecphrastic fashion, merging image and text.  And, I simply cannot believe how many people have posted pictures of their babies wrapped in American flag paraphernalia. 

More to the point, while I "get" the inflammatory aspect of the NRLC picture, I truly don't get the idea behind it.  Why does motherhood=patriotism?  Yes, birth = citizenry (usually), but few of the mothers I know think of their motherhood as an imperative for their civic and state responsibilities.  They aren't raising future patriots, or future soldiers, they are raising children.

But perhaps I too easily dismiss the connection between motherhood and state because, as a study of motherhood and law suggests, the moment one becomes pregnant, one's body is monitored, surveilled, and ceases to be, in any sense of the word, one's own.

Just a few early morning thoughts, brought to you by the phenomenon of google image searching.  More on our Handmaiden State later!

This is What a "Utopia" Looks Like?

Okay, I get it!  I know that I need to get a new analogy, but we've all read The Handmaid's Tale, right?  We've all seen The Stepford Wives, right?  We've all read Octavia Butler, right?  We all know what futuristic dystopias hold for women, right?  Well, this time, let's call it "Dystopic Pizza."

Yummmmmyyyyyyy.... it's that late night craving for blue and red and white (hmmm... you don't think they actually meant to make Domino's colors RED, WHITE, and BLUE, do you?).  And, you call Domino's.  Why?  Because they deliver at crazy hours when other pizza places don't, because maybe it's the only pizza place in your town, or because it just tastes yummy when you have a hankering for junk food...

I don't care how good it tastes, dammit!  BOYCOTT DOMINO'S PIZZA!

Mark Oliver, via The Guardian's news blog, offers an update (3/1/2006) on "Pizza Pope" Tom Monaghan's dream for a U.S. town run entirely on Catholic principles.  Because what's a little thing like separation of church and state when you've got the luxury of gated communities? 

Well, here's the plan for Ave Maria (via Oliver):
"The idea is to create a community for 35,000 people - including 5,000 students at a new university - in which, for example, cable television is controlled so there is no pornography, and there are no places where an abortion can be carried out."

The ground-breaking was last month in... you guessed it...Florida!  Because if it wasn't Texas, it had to be Florida!  So, after your trip to The Holy Land Experience in Orlando, where even the Bible is translated, Disney-style, then you can jet on over to Naples for a little Vatican, U.S. style...

And, how do you suppose this university will define academic freedom?  My guess is:  C-E-N-S-O-R-S-H-I-P...

The Ave Maria site
Talk Left
Bill Berkowitz at Working for Change
The Sunday Times (UK)
ACLU v Dominos

No Sex for You!

Via Bush vs. Pro Choice Action Center comes today's "Handmaiden News" (Original Article in Kansas City News).  Now, girls under 16 won't have to worry about losing their right to have an abortion or getting abstinence only education in schools because Kansas wants to make sex itself illegal!

The lawsuit filed by The Center for Reproductive Rights, a New York advocacy group, stems from a 2003 opinion issued by Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline's opinion requiring health care providers and others to tell authorities about consensual sex by underage youths.

The group contends that forced reporting discourages adolescents from seeking counseling and medical treatment and violates their rights to informational privacy.

The Attorney General's Office contends the statute requires mandatory reporting because sex is inherently harmful to underage children. In Kansas, the age of consent is 16.

Fortunately, Federal Judge Marten stopped the "hoo hah" and ruled against Kansas City Attorney General Phill Kline:

A federal judge hearing a constitutional challenge to a Kansas law requiring doctors, teachers and others to report underage sex between consenting youths said the state presented no credible evidence that underage sex is always harmful.

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten stopped short of issuing a decision from the bench, but he repeatedly interrupted Thursday's closing arguments by Assistant Attorney General Steve Alexander to challenge his assertions.

"Motives are irrelevant - I want to deal with facts," Marten said. "Where is the clear, credible evidence that underage sex is always injurious? If you tell me because it is illegal - I reject that," Marten said.

Maybe Phill Kline should take a page from Mumbai's morality police:

Nightlife in India's entertainment capital has become deadly dull, youngsters in Mumbai complain, as the authorities continue a crackdown on discos and bars that they accuse of corrupting impressionable young minds.

Here we go...

Surprise.  Surprise.  Take South Dakota off of the "I can live there" state list.  Via the Aberdeen News...

PIERRE, S.D. - A measure seeking a court fight aimed at overturning the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion was approved Wednesday by a South Dakota legislative committee.

The House State Affairs Committee voted 11-2 to approve a bill that would ban nearly all abortions in South Dakota.

HB1215, which next goes to the full House of Representatives, would make it a felony carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison for doctors and others to perform an abortion. However, abortions would be allowed to save the life of a pregnant woman.

Rep. Roger Hunt, R-Brandon, said recent confirmations of two new justices on the U.S. Supreme Court and gains in scientific knowledge mean that the nation's highest court might be ready to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

"I believe this is a critical time in the history of our state and actually in the history of our nation as well," Hunt said.

The measure was based on the findings of a legislatively created task force that studied abortion last year. The bill says the Legislature agrees with the task force that life begins at conception and each human being is totally unique immediately at the time of fertilization.

Hunt said the bill also recognizes that abortion should be prohibited to protect women and unborn children and to protect a woman's right to a relationship with her unborn child.

The U.S. Supreme Court will have no chance to overturn Roe v. Wade until states present the court with one or two cases that directly challenge abortion rights, Hunt said. A number of other states also are considering measures to ban abortion, he said.

Here we go.

Live State of the Union Blogging 8

Daddy Bush says for your own good:

• you'll define democracy the way he defines democracy, and you'll like it,
• you'll submit to wire taps,
• you'll be surveilled and you'll like it,
• we'll deny funds to world organizations like UNAIDS, but call our work "progress",
• you can't have Social Security,
• "it's the economy, stupid"--spend more or China will overtake us,
• you can't have Medicare or Medicaide,
• you'll have to decide between "good" immigrants and "bad" immigrants,
• you're losing health care--but you get to pay more for the lousy coverage you will get,
• you are getting more nuclear power plants (because that's not a terrorist target),
• you can't have an abortion,
• you'll embrace any and all wars in the name of terrorism,
• you'll reject any science that isn't religiously based (no cloning, no stem cells),
• you'll submit to the Patriot Act,
• you'll be quiet and not second guess his leadership,
• you will be governed by Alito and Roberts,
• you will be part of a narrowly defined religious hegemony,
• you will be "rich," but who knows how since you have to pay for lots of things you never had to before (and women, you'll be pregnant)

And to conclude:  "In recent years America has become a more hopeful nation." Yes, George, hopeful that your presidency will end soon.

Notable Quotables:

Terrorism:  16
Freedom:  15
History:  10

More Notables:  democracy, future, economy, hope, peace, honor, isolationism

Technorati Tags:  State of the Union

Live State of the Union Blogging 6

THE REASON THERE HAVE BEEN FEWER ABORTIONS IS BECAUSE YOU KEEP LIMITING THE WAYS WOMEN CAN GET ABORTIONS.

You can invoke the kind of fantasy, patriarchal country you'd like, but that isn't going to make it so. 

And you can invoke "activist" judges with derision all you want, but you just did the same damned thing.  Grrrrrr......

Technorati Tags:  State of the Union, Women's Rights, Abortion

My Thanks

To the Senators who recognize the rights of women:

Arkansas	Senator Blanche Lincoln
Arkansas	Senator Mark Pryor
California	Senator Barbara Boxer
Colorado	Senator Ken Salazar
Connecticut	Senator Chris Dodd
Connecticut	Senator Joe Lieberman
Delaware	Senator Joseph Biden
Delaware	Senator Thomas Carper
Florida	Senator Bill Nelson
Hawaii	Senator Daniel Akaka
Hawaii	Senator Daniel Inouye
Illinois	Senator Dick Durbin
Illinois	Senator Barack Obama
Indiana	Senator Evan Bayh
Iowa	Senator Tom Harkin
Louisiana	Senator Mary Landrieu
Maryland	Senator Barbara Mikulski
Maryland	Senator Paul Sarbanes
Massachusetts	Senator Edward Kennedy
Massachusetts	Senator John Kerry
Michigan	Senator Carl Levin
Michigan	Senator Debbie Stabenow
Minnesota	Senator Mark Dayton
Montana	Senator Max Baucus
Nevada	Senator Harry Reid
New Jersey	Senator Frank Lautenberg
New Jersey	Senator Robert Menendez
New Mexico	Senator Jeff Bingaman
New York	Senator Hillary Clinton
New York	Senator Charles Schumer
North Dakota	Senator Byron Dorgan
Oregon	Senator Ron Wyden
Rhode Island	Senator Lincoln Chafee
Rhode Island	Senator Jack Reed
Vermont	Senator Jim Jeffords
Vermont	Senator Patrick Leahy
Washington	Senator Maria Cantwell
Washington	Senator Patty Murray
West Virginia	Senator John Rockefeller
Wisconsin	Senator Russell Feingold
Wisconsin	Senator Herb Kohl

42 voices for women out of 100. 

Go to NARAL and fill out an on-line form to thank these Senators;  let's show our support for their continued leadership.

Read Nancy Keenan's statement on the Alito vote

Red= a majority of the state's delegation voted AGAINST Alito
Green= a majority of the state's delegation voted FOR Alito
Grey=a split vote

Time for "couple planning" on where you can actually survive in a post-Alito world...

Map from:  NOW

Blog for Choice: The Way to Energize the Debate

It's time for feminism to take a page from the gay rights movement.  Remember "I'm here, I'm queer"?  The bold statements of the 1970s and 1980s "normalized" homosexuality and, later, HIV/AIDS by working to own these ideas in our everyday lexicon.  If silence=death, then words=life.

I've been thinking all week about what I would post for "Blogging for Choice" day today.  In part, I was looking for a new argument, a new way to phrase the debate, and I felt defeated by the task.  I KNOW all of the arguments;  I KNOW my arguments.  But, in many ways, it feels like we just keep talking past one another.

So, here's the radical idea of the day:

When was the last time, at a cocktail party, that someone talked about some wildly kinky sex?  Their gay brother/sister/friend/self?  An illness someone close to them has had?  An illness they have?

And when was the last time you heard anyone talk about her abortion?  Do you even know who in your life has had an abortion?

Well, compliments of feminist activist Jennifer Baumgardner, we are going to have that conversation, have it now, and have it loudly.

Carnival!

Yes folks, Carnival of the Feminists #7 is now up on Feministe.  And holy cow!  Hope you have the whole week for a feminist mardi gras, because it's a big one!  I am so excited that Aspazia's “The Legacy of Secrecy and Shame,” about her visit to an abortion doctor's family, is featured.  I think this is important historical work right now.  It's all good, so what I really recommend is a weekend of jammies and your favorite sushi take out place on hold, because you're going to want to read it all in depth!  However, make sure you take special note of women and blogging, spanglemonkey on reading & sex, Tr1c14's discussion of material consumption and gender, and the whole section on rape.  This is a good read!  Yeah for Lauren!  Congrats!

Charlotte Simmons: A Feminist Call to Reform Academia

Late this summer, I posted a few amusing quotes from Tom Wolfe's new tome on academia in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, from the perspective of an up-and-coming member of the new intelligentsia, I Am Charlotte Simmons.

I picked up Wolfe's new book because I wanted a fun read before the semester began;  little did I know how the book would haunt me during a semester when I taught my classes bursting with first year students, wondering who among them was a Charlotte in hiding.

Months later, the book continues to resonate with me as I wonder how American public schools are failing young women,  how colleges and universities fail young women, and how basic gender education fails to make its way into our curriculum.  Almost 40 years after the feminist revolution, I can't believe we find ourselves in a place where Charlotte Simmons, bright and shining academic star of Sparta, North Carolina, is undone by a man.

The Lysistrata Campaign to Save Roe v. Wade

Still singing the Alito Blues?  Well, back in 411 B.C., Aristophanes gave us the right idea.  In the midst of the Alito/pharma/Roberts/anti-womangate era, I humbly suggest the Lysistrata Campaign to save Roe v. Wade.

Let's have a little sex war!  While the original intent of Aristophanes' comedy was to interrogate war, from which we derive the lovely sentiment of "Make Love, Not War," I believe that the same idea is applicable for us today.  Our bodies have become a war zone.

With apologies to Dr. Seuss:

I will not have sex in a box.
I will not have sex with a fox.
I will not have sex in a house.
I will not have sex with a mouse.
I will not have sex here or there.
I will not have sex anywhere.

I will not have sex with a man.
I will not have sex with a fan.
I will not have sex with a pharmacist.
I will not have sex since I'm pissed.
I will not have sex with a Democrat,
'til we have a little "pro-choice" chat,
I will not have sex with a Republican,
'cause I'm a part of the Lysistrata sex -ban!
I will not have sex with a judge.
I will not, will not, will not budge.

We won't have sex until we have our birth control pills filled at pharmacies.  We won't have sex until we have the right to make decisions about our bodies.  We won't have sex until our health care and our health rights receive equal attention and protection to men's health and health care.  We won't have sex until there are health care, day care, and child-friendly policies in the United States that make it possible to raise a well-cared for child.  We won't have sex until we have an educational system worthy of our children.  We won't have sex until No Child Left Behind is repealed.  We won't have sex until the money we've spent on Iraq is put into education and women's health.  We won't have sex!