"Reports of Feminists' Discussions of How to Counter Legislative Attacks on Abortion" by Carol Downer

Rain and Thunder publishes "Repoductive Sovereignty or Bust!"

The latest issue of "Rain and Thunder: A Radical Feminist Journal of Discussion and Activism" published "Reproductive Sovereignty or Bust!" Pick up a copy and support this publication!

GREAT CONFERENCE! BirthKeeper Summit Report

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Thank you! on "Kathy Hodge Can Make HISTORY with YOUR Financial Help!"

YOU CAN MAKE HISTORY HAPPEN!

Your donation can fund Kathy Hodge* to present the report of the 1975 Women’s Health Center’s participant-controlled study of the female menstrual cycle at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Conference in Boston, June 4th to 6th, 2015.

“In male-dominated science, not as much work has been done to find a simple indicator of a woman’s days, which begin prior to the basal body temperature change at ovulation, as has been done on walking on the moon”

DONATE to cover Kathy’s out-of-pocket expenses
Needed: $2400.00
Donate via PayPal or check c/o Carol Downer 

Continue Reading

 Thank You for Your Support!

• Karen Nixon ($25.00) 
• Francie Hornstein ($50.00)
• Judith Kaluzny ($50.00)
• Shelby Coleman ($50.00)
• Monique Harriton ($25.00)
• Melissa Davis ($40.00)
• Teresa Downer ($40.00)
• Thora J. DeLey ($25.00)
• James J. Cox ($50.00)

Kathy Hodge Can Make HISTORY with YOUR Financial Help!

YOU CAN MAKE HISTORY HAPPEN!

Your donation can fund Kathy Hodge* to present the report of the 1975 Women’s Health Center’s participant-controlled study of the female menstrual cycle at the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research Conference in Boston, June 4th to 6th, 2015.

“In male-dominated science, not as much work has been done to find a simple indicator of a woman’s days, which begin prior to the basal body temperature change at ovulation, as has been done on walking on the moon”

DONATE to cover Kathy’s out-of-pocket expenses
Needed: $2400.00
Donate via PayPal or check c/o Carol Downer

HISTORY

In 1975, the Feminist Women’s Health Centers did the first-ever participant-led menstrual cycle research. 

9 staff members of the Feminist Women’s Health Center (including Kathy Hodge) met each day for over a month, recording changes in our vaginas and cervixes, our moods, basal body temperature, and other physiological changes.

FINDINGS

“We found that healthy females can have a wider range of normal than previously believed.  We did see cyclic changes, but not the ones medical textbooks focused on.  Moods defied cyclic interpretation in our study, which frankly surprised us.”

PUBLICATION OF RESULTS

The findings were published in the journal, Women’s Health (now defunct), Helen Marieskind, editor-in-chief.

ABOUT THE SOCIETY FOR MENSTRUAL CYCLE RESEARCH

The Society for Menstrual Cycle Research is a nonprofit, interdisciplinary research organization.  Its membership includes researchers in the social and health sciences, humanities scholars, health care providers, policy makers, health activists, artists and students with interests in the role of the menstrual cycle in women’s health and well-being.

The Society works to have menstrual health respected as a human right.  The UNDP and UNICEF have highlighted menstruation as “the single most important factor affecting school drop-out among girls”.

THE CONFERENCE

• Keynote by Reproductive Justice Pioneer Loretta Ross
• Kick-Off Flash! Plenary showcasing several short diverse talks that make the menstrual connection
• 2015 Making Menstruation Matter award presentation to Our Bodies, Ourselves
• Plenary on Menstrual Cycle Hygiene Management campaigns around the globe
• “Mainstreaming the Flow”: (Still) Selling my Soul to Start the Conversation” with Tomi-Ann Roberts
• “Widening the Cycle”, a menstrual art exhibit and plenary
• Poetry Open Mic and Raffle hosted by Dominique Christina
• Lunette Comedy and Cocktails with the Crimson Wave Girls

KATHY WILL PRESENT A SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS

This breakthrough study exploded the medical myth that any variation from the 28-day cycle was “abnormal”.  We also found that relying on the results of routine one-time, “snapshot”, readings of lab tests could result in grossly inappropriate and even harmful diagnoses and treatments. Mood changes during our cycles seemed more impacted by the environment.

WE HAVE THE FOLLOWING PERKS TO SHOW OUR APPRECIATION FOR YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT

THE PERKS!

$5.00 OR MORE 

YOU WILL RECEIVE A SOCIAL MEDIA SHOUT-OUT AND A REPORT OF THE CONFERENCE FROM KATHY (We will list your name on our website, blog, facebook, and twitter as a supporter of Kathy’s presentation.)

$25.00

A copy of Pat Maginnis’ “Condom Coloring Book”
Donate: PayPal or check c/o Carol Downer

$40.00

A Self-Examination Kit, including speculum, flashlight, hand mirror and instruction sheet (donated by Women’s Health Specialists)
Donate: PayPal or check c/o Carol Downer

$50.00

A used, good-condition copy of A Woman’s Book of Choices” by Rebecca Chalker and Carol Downer (it’s out of print)
Donate: PayPal or check c/o Carol Downer

$100.00

Framed Pat Maginnis cartoon showing a uterus being pulled in a tug-of-war between patriarchal men and population controllers) OR a PDF copy of Kathy Hodge’s paper, with tables and charts.
Donate: PayPal or check c/o Carol Downer

We gladly accept checks!  Please write the check to:

Women's Health in Women's Hands c/o Carol Downer

Mail to:
Womenshealthinwomenshands.org
2451 Ridgeview Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90041

Social media shout out will be posted immediately.  Kathy Hodge’s PDF report will be e-mailed, and other perks will be mailed by July 31st.

Thank You for Your Support!

About Us: Women's Health in Women's Hands

womenshealthinwomenshands.org is a project of Women’s Health Specialists in Northern California. Carol Downer heads up the project.

WHWH director, Carol Downer

Carol co-founded the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Los Angeles in 1971. The FWHC pioneered the “self-help clinic”, a type of meeting in which women learned vaginal self-examination using a plastic speculum. They travelled around the country sharing the self-help clinic concept forming a loose network of on-going self-help groups. After Roe v. Wade, self-help women across the country started women-controlled abortion clinics and joined together in the Federation of Feminist Women’s Health Centers. The Federation clinics influenced most abortion practitioners to abandon the old-fashioned “D&C” (dilation and curettage) procedure for the less traumatic vacuum aspiration method using smaller, flexible plastic instruments. They also fought TRAP laws (Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers) that would have blocked the establishment of abortion clinics.

The Federation has produced slide shows and films, and has published several women’s health books, A New View of a Woman’s Body”, “How to Stay Out of the Gynecologist’s Office”, “Women-Centered Pregnancy and Birth” and “A Woman’s Book of Choices”.

Women’s Health Specialists, WHWH Sponsor
WHS has six sites in northern California, which provides an array of women’s health services, predominantly birth control and abortion and adoption since 1975. WHS was a co-founder of the Federation of Feminist Women’s Health Centers in 1975.

Chico FWHC 1975

WHS, originally the Chico Feminist Women’s Health Center, was formed by 8 women in Chico. The immediately successful health center quickly gained acceptance in the rural community where the California State University at Chico is located, however they fought a legal battle against local physicians to force them to provide back-up for their clients who may experience complications requiring hospital facilities. Later, the staff successfully defended itself against charges of fraud from the Republican administration of Deukmajian. Some of the later attacks are well-publicized, like the ongoing raucous, hate-spewing protests from anti-abortionists and violent attacks like stink bombs and arson which destroyed the Redding WHS twice. Others, like repeated ill-founded investigations by the State Department of Health and Welfare attract less notice from the media, but require vigorous, lengthy and expensive defense efforts by the staff, its legal counsel, its board and its supporters. Throughout this tumultuous history of attack and victory, the Chico FWHC has expanded to become the Northern California WHS with 6 sites and enjoys the respect of pro-choice legislators, law enforcement agencies, other providers of women’s health services, and women in the community.

Many other women-controlled clinics, including most of the FWHC’s, closed during the 80’s. Today, Feminist Women’s Health Centers are located in Washington State, California and Georgia. There are 13 women-controlled clinics in the Feminist Abortion Network, FAN.

REMAKING THE WORLD WITH A FEMINIST VISION

This website is designed to provide women with the information to control her own body, to counter centuries of systematic attack by patriarchal institutions against women’s freedom to enjoy their sexuality and to control their reproduction. When women share our sexual and reproductive experiences frankly and openly in a supportive environment, we cast off the invisible shackles caused by shame and ignorance, and are empowered to remake the world according to feminist values, such as equality between all people, social justice, and promoting a society that creates a healthy environment and nurtures our children.

A Gentle Revolution
WHWH believes that it is a revolutionary act for a woman to learn to use a speculum, a mirror and a light to look at her own cervix, and to share this knowledge with other women. “Women’s Health in Women’s Hands” means educating ourselves about our bodies and our healthy functioning, and helping each other, so that we are empowered consumers. WHWH also means establishing women’s clinics to provide abortions and birth control or birth centers; it means using self-help principles to become midwives, doulas, and lactation consultants to rebuild the knowledge and lore of natural childbirth.

FULL SPECTRUM
womenshealthinwomenshands.org has a Pro-Woman Agenda which comes from the perspective that in order for a woman to control her sexuality and reproduction, she must enjoy the full spectrum of her sexual and reproductive rights. womenshealthinwomenshands.org opposes all state restrictions on women’s reproductive rights, whether it be laws prohibiting or forcing abortion or those prohibiting pregnant women choosing work or lifestyles that might pose risks to her fetus, or laws limiting women’s options in the birthing process.

Pill Popular with Slate's Beyerstein but Feminists Have Doubts

By Carol Downer

The women’s health movement has had a healthy skepticism about all the invasive methods of birth control developed in the last half century--IUD’s and various type of pills.  Women stormed the Pill hearings in 1970 because they saw that no women were participating in the research or the government approval process, and they were leery of women taking a powerful drug - it stops the reproductive machine in its tracks - to control fertility.  Safe, effective methods of birth control existed that women had used in certain societies for many decades.

Lindsay Beyerstein, in her review of Holly Grigg-Spall’s “Sweetening The Pill” seems unaware of our protests, including Barbara Seaman’s explosive work, “The Doctor’s Case Against the Pill”.  Our efforts, mostly through the National Women’s Health Network, have continued over the years, forcing the drug companies to improve their inserts and to lower dosages, so that some of the more catastrophic complications that showed up right away have been substantially lowered.  Still, today, no women’s health advocate will dismiss Holly Grigg-Spall’s questions about the way that the Pill has been marketed, the way it’s been pushed by population control organizations in their clinics and the implications of millions of women taking a pill that may change their emotional hard-wiring.  Furthermore, the net social result of millions of women walking around having drug-induced feelings of sadness and depression is unfathomable.

Feminist health activists’ lack of enthusiasm about the Pill has continued, but women have voted with their feet.  They’ve embraced the Pill.  Even the harshest critics of the Pill, the Feminist Women’s Health Centers, have given out the Pill freely since they opened their doors in 1973 because women want it.  The National Women’s Health Network focuses its efforts on making the Pill as safe as possible, not on restricting its distribution.  Regarding screening out women with high risk of complication, we say, “There’s no woman sick enough to justify keeping her from taking the Pill; there’s no woman healthy enough to protect her from suffering severe side effects of the Pill.”  We know the realities of our lives, and we respect the calculations any woman makes when she determines what birth control method she will use.  After we’ve made sure she has the most up-to-date information available, we fight for her right to choose whatever method she thinks best.

We know, from running our women’s clinics, that an inordinate number of women are taking anti-depressants.  No one is really doing the kind of research that would give us answers as to what is causing that widespread experience of depression.   

So, why does Slate, a progressive on-line magazine not pay respectful attention to a serious book which questions the safety of a pill being taken by millions of women at a time when the research into the actions of hormones in our body are at an infant stage?  Aren’t we progressives worried about government approval of routine genetic modification of the public’s food supply. (Oh, I forgot. The government regulators that Beyerstein places her trust in did approve GMO, didn’t they?) 

Does Grigg-Spall’s book not merit respectful review because it calls into question the popular myth of the benefits of the Pill?  Lindsay Beyerstein claims, “The pill ushered in a new era of educational and professional attainment for women.  As a discreet, highly-effective, and fully female-controlled form of birth control, the pill allowed women to plan their families, space their births, and even delay childbearing long enough to establish themselves in careers.”  

This statement reads like the drug company’s promotional ad.  It’s misleading.  When comparing the Pill with non-invasive methods of birth control, they’re about equal in effectiveness when used properly, and about equal when not used properly!  Running abortion clinics, we find that about as many women become pregnant taking the Pill as using other methods especially if one takes into consideration the oft-occurring situation where a woman suffers a side-effect of the Pill which causes her to quit and before she can institute a new method, she’s pregnant! 

She says it’s wonderful that the Pill is a female-controlled form of birth control.  When I asked Dr. Hugh Davis, inventor of an IUD, why they hadn’t tried a birth control pill on men, his answer was, “We couldn’t get the (reproductive) tracts.”  Even if most women envision themselves as having a career, isn’t the real feminist battle to change society so that having a baby is not a career-derailing event?

Or is Grigg-Spall dismissed because perhaps she thinks that today’s woman is not really that thrilled to drop her children off at a day care center so that she can plug through a day that’s as dreary as their father’s?  Or maybe Beyerstein is unaware of the science of demography, or the machinations of industrialists, or the schemes of social planners who are funded by elite foundations?  She should read Betty Friedan who spent two years looking at the files of public relations firms and interviewed the manufacturers who hired them to discover how much the “Feminine Mystique” was created by the post World-War II media to convince American women to stay home and buy more household furnishings and appliances to support “patriarchal capitalism”.  Oh, where is Betty when we need her!

My favorite explanation is that Beyerstein’s intemperate review comes from her fear that Grigg-Spall wants to make women, including herself, revel in her bodily procreative functions, thus making her into an incubator.  (Beyerstein makes a gratuitous side swipe against women who want to breast feed or not have epidurals.)  I don’t get that implication.  I believe that Grigg-Spall is sharing her concern that the social pressures and inequality of opportunity that women have that leads them to take the Pill is resulting in their enduring years of feeling sub-par.  She is impressing the reader with the enormity of the monkey wrench that the Pill is throwing into the functioning of our bodies.

Beyerstein dismisses Grigg-Spall’s experiences as irrelevant, and insists that only scientific studies, (note: funded by the manufacturers), are to be trusted.  Well, the second wave of feminism was founded on the rock of “the personal is political”.  It was when we sat in a circle and shared our individual stories that we realized our position in the whole scheme of things.  I do not think that Grigg-Spall has “proven” that the Pill is creating generations of Stepford Wives, but I wish that there was some research designed to find out what’s going on with women today who sometimes seem to lose their revolutionary zeal.   Taking a hormone-like drug that makes one feel blue may not be the whole explanation, but it deserves looking into.

Lastly, is it inaccurate for Grigg-Spall to say that the Pill is equivalent to castration?  Well, no one would deny that it is temporarily castrating, that is, when a woman is taking the Pill, her gonads are not working.  But, over a period of years, the Pill can permanently stop the ovary from ovulating.  Now, that’s castration.  Maybe that doesn’t bother some people.  But, remember, hormones, which are manufactured in the ovary circulate through the blood and go into each and every cell of our body.  These incredibly tiny molecules (about which we know appallingly little) cause changes in each cell, different depending on the function of the cell.  These changes are poorly understood and new ones are being discovered every day. 

I would hope that Slate finds another reviewer who understands that birth control and abortion are hotly-debated topics that are hotly debated global population policy forum.  A woman’s decision regarding her sexuality and reproduction are private decisions, however a battle rages between the camp which wants to engineer women’s choices such that they choose to have fewer children, the camp which wants to engineer those choices in the direction of fewer children, and the women’s health movement which is working to change society so that women can have true choice, because society would provide support for any child they would have.  Without that perspective, Slate finds itself in the company of the first camp.

Response to Carol Downer's "Margaret Sanger Award"

Women's Health in Women's Hands received the following comment on its Facebook page.  It was a response to an announcement of Carol Downer's Margaret Sanger Award (awarded by the Veteran Feminists of America).  

You must be so proud..."We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." -Margaret Sanger

Here is Carol Downer's reply:

Yes, I am so proud to be getting the Margaret Sanger award, because I know, from extensive reading about Margaret Sanger’s lifelong work to put birth control in the hands of all women, that she was not a bigot and she certainly did not harbor any genocidal tendencies. She did, however, make alliances with those wealthy elites who seek to control population, especially those of people of color, to deal with the dangers of overpopulation, rather than give up their prerogatives. She did make mistakes, but she would not have countenanced anything that would “exterminate the Negro population”, a phrase she was clearly using to mock intemperate accusations that she was anticipating.

I know that she worked tirelessly to urge women of all nationalities, cultural backgrounds and ethnic groups, to use birth control to limit their families. I read the quote that you rely on to show her genocidal tendencies to in fact show her awareness of not only the genocidal implications of use of birth control to wipe out undesirable populations, but also her awareness that those who oppose birth control for nationalistic or religious reasons often yell “racism” to cover their own pro-natalist motivations. She says “we don’t want the word to get out”, not “we don’t want the word to go out”.

If you knew more about Margaret Sanger, you would know that she was a fiery socialist from a working-class background, and her earliest work focused especially on poor people, mostly white working-class women. When wealthy white women took over her organization, directing it in much more conservative direction, she abandoned her grassroots approach. She re-married a very wealthy man, Noah Slee, the inventor of 3-in-1 oil which put her on par with them.

The reason that I continue to admire Margaret, even though she was closely associated with Planned Parenthood, which has a spotty record on forcing birth control on vulnerable populations, and even though she and her very wealthy associate, Katherine McCormick, were the prime movers in the development of the birth control pill, is that I know that she always stuck up for the right of a woman to control her own body--that was her bottom line.

Furthermore, and this is the most important reason that I admire her despite her compromises and mistakes in choice of allies is that I see the leaders in the women’s movement, and other progressive movements, making the same mistakes today--and this includes women of color and the movement that challenges gender stereotypes. They accept funding from the same elites that Margaret did, telling themselves that they can take their money without accepting their influence, and they seem less aware than Margaret was about the political price they are paying for this easy money. I respect and admire these groups as well, despite the mistakes that I believe they are currently making.

I recommend that you educate yourself about the field of population control and the propaganda wars being fought on both sides, those that want to limit population growth and those that want to increase it. Whoever put out that incendiary quote, completely out of the context, had a motive, and I can guarantee you that it was not to promote the rights of people of color or the rights of women.

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Veteran Feminists of America - 20th Anniversary Celebration - Conference & Gala Awards Dinner

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Sheraton Universal Hotel

Los Angeles, California

HTTP://WomenandMedia2013.us

 Note: Carol Downer receiving the Margaret Sanger Award for Champion of Women's Sexual & Reproductive Liberation

CIMS "Reframing Birth and Breastfeeding: Moving Forward" Conference

March 11-12, 2011 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Carol Downer will attend the CIMS conference in March. She will have a booth on behalf of the Women's Health Specialists and Women's Health in Women's Hands. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments re: Carol's trip or booth please feel free to email whwh@womenshealthinwomenshands.org.

FROM CIMS: As our Valentine's Day gift, we're extending the deadline for registrants to take advantage of reduced Early Bird registration rates through February 14, 2011.

Another way that we are sharing the love this Valentine's Day is by offering an exceptional conference program. The conference program includes more than 22 hours of educational programming, and attendees may qualify for more than 13 contact hours for their participation. Speakers include Eugene Declercq, Miriam Labbok, Penny Simkin, Susan Ludington, Lori Dorfman, Best for Babes' Bettina Forbes and Danielle Rigg, Bernice Hausman, Jacqueline Wolf, and many more. That's a lot to love!