Keep on Keeping on—Hitting the Streets for Abortion Rights

Chicago radical printers Salsedo Press adapted this French graphic by Eric Drooker from Éditions Libertalia for the first Women's March in January 2017.  It fits the current moment just as well.

Those who want to own and control women’s bodies smugly thought they had completely triumphed when the Supreme Court, infected by nominees of a criminal President, tossed decades of “firmly established precedent” to drive a stake into the heart of Roe v Wade and abortion rights.  Red States fell all over themselves to put already enacted draconian limitations in place or to enact new, often bizarre means to coercion and punishment.

But they were wrong.  In a little more than a month, women and their allies have risen up and spoken out in record numbers in all corners of the United States.  They have already upset the reactionary apple cart and gone from protest to the offensive.  In the streets and in the corridors of power they—we—have become an irresistible force.  And now the assumptions of conventional wisdom that Democrats would lose the Federal House of Representative, their tenuous hold on the Senate, state legislative seats, and local government bodies in a non-presidential year are out the window.  A one-two punch of militant direct action, and motivated voter turnout in November protect women’s rights and bodies.

Wherever you live, there are actions planned.  Voter turnout drives and new Vote-Blue-as-if Your-Life-Depended-On-It campaigns for Pro-Choice candidates are ramping up. Join them!  

Here in McHenry County Illinois, we will be back for another event, We Won’t Go Back: Rally for Reproductive Rights, this Saturday, August 13 from 11 am to 1 pm at the southeast corner of Randall and Algonquin Roads, right by the Jewel at 103 S. Randall Road in Algonquin.

MCCC President Mary Ewart, center, at their booth at the McHenry County Fair last week.  The Old Man pulled a shift there on Friday night.

My long-time friend and fellow co-conspirator for justice, Mary Ewart, President of McHenry County Citizens for Choice (MCCC) writes:

It’s time to turn our anger into action, so I’m looking forward to seeing you on Saturday at this vitally important event.  Come for the protest, stay for lunch and scrumptious baked goods at the UpRising Cafe that's been so much in the news lately.  Show your support and take a stand against the haters.

Our rally is co-sponsored by McHenry County NOW, MCCC, and Standing Up Against Racism Woodstock.    Please RSVP on the event’s Facebook page.  

This will be third pop-up protest in McHenry County since the horrendous Supreme Court decision came down shredding the right to abortion in the U.S., and it will be the biggest yet!  We’ll have signs or bring your own.  Your participation is urgently needed and will make all the difference.  Please put the event on your calendar, plan to attend, and bring all your friends.  And don’t forget to make sure you’re registered to vote:  early voting in the November election begins soon!

Abortion is medical care, and the only people who should be making the decision to carry or terminate a pregnancy are the pregnant person, her doctors, and those of her loved ones she chooses to involve.  It’s no one else’s business.

For more information, you can reach us at info@mcccprochoice.org  or 815 596-0892.  See you on Saturday!

 

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.