As Reproductive Rights are Under Siege The Old Man is Called to Testify Again

 

Not only are abortion rights under attack but women's control over their own bodies is being criminalized.

Note—A version this first appeared on my blog back in its relative infancy in 2007. And I have re-run it when the simple right of meaningful reproductive choice has seemed particularly threatened.  The post was drafted in response to an appeal from NARAL Pro-Choice America for stories about life before Roe V. Wade for use in a new campaign in defense of women’s right to choose, which back then unexpectedly seemed under attack again. 

Back in 2007 we were in shock that rights considered firmly and irrevocably won were once again under attack.  Fifteen years later that attack has become a tsunami.  Numerous attempts to sharply curtail abortion in several states were routinely over-turned in Federal Courts.  But now with a Supreme Court majority packed by the former serial-abuser-in-chief, word leaked out early this month that Roe v. Wade is about to be overturned.

The Roe v Wade decision did not come out of thin air--it was the result of prolonged and militant action by feminists--a victory hard won and not just benevolently granted.

That is the desperate situation women—and men who truly love and respect women—find themselves in today in the United States.  But they are not taking the attacks lying down.  From mass Handmaidens demonstrations to marches, rallies, and organizing at the polls new resistance is rising.

Women have taken to the streets in massive numbers across the USA to protest an anticipated Supreme Court Ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and they are not going to stop.

We will not return to the conditions described in this old blog post.

                            The Girl with Italian Renaissance hair.

It was 1971 in Chicago.  We’ll call her Ellen.  She was a friend from college, tall and willowy with Italian Renaissance brown hair.  She had a chorus part in an experimental rock cantata by night and waited tables by day.  She was not my girlfriend.  I wished she was. I was a forlorn looking hippy in a cowboy hat and bright orange goatee, the dopey/quirky best pal in a romantic comedy—the guy who moons around and ends up helping the bad boy with the megawatt smile get the girl.  We met for dinner about once a week and sometimes went out for a drink after her show on a Saturday night.

I came over to her place for dinner one night, Liebfraumilch in a stone bottle in hand.  She was crying.  “I’m pregnant.  I don’t know what to do.”  I held her and comforted her.  I didn’t ask who the father was.  She didn’t volunteer.  It was, after all, the lingering twilight of the ‘60’s.

But I was on the staff of the old Seed, the Chicago underground newspaper.  I had connections.  I knew people who knew people.

                                      I knew people who knew people.  Those people were Jane.

Those people were the Jane Collective, a semi-secret action group of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union who defied Illinois law and arranged safe abortions.  In later years I got to know names and faces of some of them.  They were true heroes in a desperate time.

I helped Ellen get in contact with Jane.  They arranged for her to see a cooperating doctor.  She had to go alone to the appointment, where she was given a chemical abortifacient.  I waited for her at her apartment.

The procedure was as safe as possible, but the cramping and pain from the induced miscarriage was serious in Ellen’s case.  It lasted three days.  I stayed with her the whole time.  We were afraid to seek further medical help.  Other women had been arrested in hospital emergency rooms. 

In the end, the procedure was effective.  Ellen recovered.  She got on with her life.  She went off the next summer on some high adventure and I never saw her again.  I got on with my life.

Within a few years, Illinois revised its laws in response to Roe v. Wade and safe abortions in clinical settings became available.  Jane dissolved.  But I will always remember Ellen’s needless ordeal and will never knowingly allow another woman to suffer so.

 

A Man Called to Testify as Reproductive Rights are Under Siege

Not only are abortion rights under attack but women's control over their own bodies is being criminalized.

Note—A version this first appeared on my blog back in its relative infancy in 2007. And I have re-run it when the simple right of meaningful reproductive choice has seemed particularly threatened.  The post was drafted in response to an appeal from NARAL Pro-Choice America for stories about life before Roe V. Wade for use in a new campaign in defense of women’s right to choose, which back then unexpectedly seemed under attack again. 

Back in 2007 we were in shock that rights considered firmly and irrevocably won were once again under attack.  Twelve years later that attack has become a tsunami.  Numerous attempts to sharply curtail abortion in several states were routinely over-turned in Federal Courts.  But after Republicans blocked almost all Obama nominees to Circuit courts leaving yawning vacancies the Trump mal-administration, with the full collusion of the Senate, filled those seats with reliable conservatives, many of them openly fanatic.  Despite a drawn-out and contentious confirmation hearing, Brett Kavanaugh made it to the Supreme Court after promising Senator Susan Collins that he considered Roe v. Wade “settled law.”  Now with a 5-4 conservative majority, no one expects him to respect that precedent.  

The Roe v Wade decision did not come out of thin air--it was the result of prolonged and militant action by feminists--a victory hard won and not just benevolently granted.

Now a well-oiled machine has produced votes in several states with gerrymandered Republican super majorities and compliant governors are in competition with each other to pass the most draconian virtual abortion bans—so called heartbeat bills.  Old promises of so-called mainstream right-to-lifers that they would never criminally charge women have been cast aside.  In Georgia every common miscarriage could result in a criminal investigation and even traveling out of state to obtain a legal abortion would be a crime.  Doctors would face 99 year sentences in Alabama and in several states family members, friends, and pro-choice advocate could be criminally charged with abetting an abortion for acts as simple as making a phone call, providing funds, or driving to an appointment. In some states even the narrowest exceptions for rape, incest, fetal viability or the health of the mother have been eliminated.  Legal experts say that the language in some bills could result in a 12-year-old rape victim could be charged with murder and face the death penalty.

The point of all of these bills is simply to get a case—any case—before the Supreme Court so that the new majority there could completely over-turn Roe v. Wade.  In anticipation of that states like Illinois are moving to protect abortion rights by enshrining them in state constitutions.  If Roe v. Wade was overturned simply to allow states to exercise the power to enact their own restrictions, under the Federalism long touted by conservative pro-abortion states could set their own laws protecting women’s rights.  And that was the best the anti-abortion movement could have hoped for even two years ago.

Now, however, they have a reasonable hope that a Supreme Court decision will not just return jurisdiction over abortions to the states but will rule for personhood from conception or at least so early in fetal development that women would have no functional rights.  That was the unattainable Holy Grail of the most extreme wing of the anti-abortion movement—until now.  If the Court makes that ruling it would open the door to Federal legislation outlawing abortion under the same 14th Amendment “equal protection under the law” provisions used in Civil Rights and voting rights cases.

Handmaidens and others protest at the Alabama state Capitol in Montgomery.

That is the desperate situation women—and men who truly love and respect women--find themselves in today in the United States.  But they are not taking the attacks lying down.  From mass Handmaidens demonstrations to marches, rallies, and organizing at the polls new resistance is rising.

We will not return to the conditions described in this old blog post.

***

The Girl with Italian Renaissance hair.

It was 1971 in Chicago.  We’ll call her Ellen.  She was a friend from college, tall and willowy with Italian Renaissance brown hair.  She had a chorus part in an experimental rock cantata by night and waited tables by day.  She was not my girlfriend.  I wished she was. I was a forlorn looking hippy in a cowboy hat and bright orange goatee, the dopey/quirky best pal in a romantic comedy—the guy who moons around and ends up helping the bad boy with the megawatt smile get the girl.  We met for dinner about once a week and sometimes went out for a drink after her show on a Saturday night.

I came over to her place for dinner one night, Liebfraumilch in a stone bottle in hand.  She was crying.  “I’m pregnant.  I don’t know what to do.”  I held her and comforted her.  I didn’t ask who the father was.  She didn’t volunteer.  It was, after all, the lingering twilight of the ‘60’s.

But I was on the staff of the old Seed, the Chicago underground newspaper.  I had connections.  I knew people who knew people.

Those people were the Jane Collective, semi-secret action group of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union who defied Illinois law and arranged safe abortions.  In later years I got to know names and faces of some of them.  They were true heroes in a desperate time.

I knew people who knew people.  Those people were Jane.

I helped Ellen get in contact with Jane.  They arranged for her to see a cooperating doctor.  She had to go alone to the appointment, where she was given a chemical abortifacient.  I waited for her in her apartment.

The procedure was as safe as possible, but the cramping and pain from the induced miscarriage was serious in Ellen’s case.  It lasted three days.  I stayed with her the whole time.  We were afraid to seek further medical help.  Other women had been arrested in hospital emergency rooms. 

In the end, the procedure was effective.  Ellen recovered.  She got on with her life.  She went off the next summer on some high adventure and I never saw her again.  I got on with my life.

Within a few years, Illinois revised its laws in response to Roe v. Wade and safe abortions in clinical settings became available.  Jane dissolved.  But I will always remember Ellen’s needless ordeal and will never knowingly allow another woman to suffer so.

Women and Allies March Again in Woodstock

Ruth Scifo, an organizer of the event, was the host and MC from the Woodstock Square Gazebo .

In clammy but not oppressive Woodstock Square under sometimes threatening skies, more almost 200 folks gathered to mark the Six month Anniversary of the Women’s March on Washington and its sister marches around the world and to recommit to the spirit of Resistance of that seminal event.  Attendance would undoubtedly been higher if it were not for fear of another round of storms, the many folks in the county dealing with flooding, and numerous competing events.

Particular emphasis was on electoral action—voter registration and turn-out, candidate recruitment, and electing more women at all levels of government.  That reflected the primary organizers of the event which included the Democratic Party of McHenry County, and members of McHenry County Progressives and Indivisible, all oriented to political action.  So it lacked the kind of edgy street militancy and radicalism that were included in the January mega-marches.  But that probably also marks exactly where the movement in McHenry County is today.

Still, the program from the Gazebo took pains to be as inclusive as possible and reflect the broad range of constituencies under attack in Trump’s America.  Speakers included  MC and event organizer Ruth Scifo who also organized the McHenry County contingent at the March on Washington event; McHenry County Democrats Vice Chair Kristina Zahorik who also did an outstanding job tying the event to historic suffrage rallies held on the Square; Cindy Skrukrud, Clean Water Program Director at Sierra Club Illinois and former Director of the Environmental Defenders of McHenry County; Janie Galarza, Latino Outreach Coordinator at the domestic violence agency Turning Point who spoke on the intersession of health care, domestic abuse; Jenna Prochaska of the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Reproduction Rights Project; and immigration; and Mary Ewert of McHenry County Citizens for Choice and who represented the Handmaiden’s protest to the assault on women’s reproductive rights and women’s autonomy.  I hope I have not forgotten anyone, but I probably have.

Tree of Life UU Congregation Social Justice Team Co-Chair Judy Stettner and her husband Mark.  Judy brought a supply of UUA and Standing on the Side of Love plackards that were very popular.

The crowd included about a dozen members and friends of Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation in McHenry and our rally card from the UUA were popular placards for the rally and march.  I also spied dozens of old friends and fellow trouble makers from my days with the old Interfaith Committee for Social Justice, Diversity Days, the anti-war movement, and the Democratic Party as well as new acquaintances from several Resistance events since the Election.

After the oratory was over, we all did a lap around the Square and then marched to Dick Tracy Park on Lake Street, about a mile and a half amble.  Tree of Lifers were among those in the lead of the march, but I fell a bit back taking pictures and ended up just behind two octogenarian women, one with double canes.  They set a brisk pace that I had trouble keeping up with.  After we got to the park and cooled down some, I was pleased to offer the services of my daughter, Maureen Rotter who came to pick me up to give them a ride back to their car near the square.

All in all it was a good day and time well spent.  Everybody was energized and there were lots of opportunities participate in ongoing campaigns, events, and political activity.

Here is a small gallery of photos from the rally and march.

 

The Handmaidens were a dramatic prescience at the rally and on the march.  

Part of the crowd looking towards the Civil War monument and Pump house on the square.  You may be able to make out the one tall placard topped by American flags, it read "Women 4 Trunp" and was carried by the lone counter demonstrated.  She was simply ignored and no one spoke to or molested her, but she was surrounded a wide toxic no-go zone.

Cheryl Niemoy of Jail Brakers, Carol Ciccotoso, and Marian Weiss.

 

Democratic candidate for Congress from the 14th District Jim Walz in black shirt by the McHenry County Democrats table at the end of the march in Dick Tracy Park.