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

Cape Cod Meeting Population Control Handouts

Exclusive Q&A with Ricki Lake, Abby Epstein, & Holly Grigg-Spall

 
What made you want to shed light on this topic of hormonal contraceptives?
Ricki: It really seemed like a very natural progression for us from ‘The Business of Being Born.’ Women spend more time trying to avoid pregnancy - a decade or more at the start, then they have babies, then they’re back to trying to avoid it for further decades. It’s an experience all women share. What we did for birth, we want to do for birth control, and empower women with more information and more choice. ‘The Business of Being Born’ was about body literacy and this project is the same - it’s about women knowing, understanding, and trusting their bodies.

Abby: We’ve both had our own negative experiences with different kinds of hormonal contraceptives over the years. We know other women who have experienced the same thing. Holly Grigg-Spall sent us her manuscript for ‘Sweetening the Pill: Or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control’ and something just clicked when I was reading it. For the first time, I was connecting emotionally difficult periods in my life to the use of the pill and it just made so much sense to do this film. We could approach birth control with women’s empowerment in mind, too.

Holly: For me, I wrote the book because I had a pretty terrible personal experience with the Pill, which I used for ten years consistently. The book began as a blog that I wrote about coming off the Pill and my experience doing that, how it made me feel, finding alternative contraception, learning about my cycle and so on. That blog meant that lots of women got in touch to share their own stories. I realized the extent of this problem. I then soon realized it was really taboo almost to criticize the Pill or the culture around the Pill. That interested me. I saw ‘The Business of Being Born’ when I was actually writing the book and I made the connection right away. I wrote about the parallels between the birth and the birth control industries. I knew that the book could make the basis of a great documentary and that the absolute best people to do this would be Abby and Ricki. I set my sights on that. Of course, I am now over-the-moon about the film. A book is one thing, but a documentary like this can reach so many more women.

Why have you turned to Kickstarter to get this movie made?
Abby: We spent a year going the traditional route and we met with a few networks and production companies. We had a lot of discussion and a lot of real interest. People were saying this film could be “the Food Inc. of birth control.” Everyone has a story or knows someone who has a story about this, it’s just that kind of subject. But, it doesn’t have that commercial pull. It seems, at first, a little scary even. Some people struggle to understand the perspective. We have to explain that it is not anti-birth control or anti-Pill. Instead it is pro-informed consent, pro-choice, and pro-knowledge. We want women to have more options for contraception, not less! We want them to have more access, not less! It’s a feminist film project. This topic is very politicized right now, so that takes a little time to explain.

Ricki: People might not realize, but we didn’t actually make any money from ‘The Business of Being Born’ - it was hugely successful in many great ways, but we lost money. Documentaries are really passion projects. We know a grassroots effort is right for this project, it spreads awareness and gets the conversation going. Women will share their stories and may even share their stories for the film. They will have their experiences validated by this, which is so important. The campaign is doing really well, but we have to keep going strong to reach our goal now.

The Kickstarter campaign highlights Fertility Awareness Methods as a non-hormonal alternative, particularly when supported with apps and new technology. How did this area come to your attention?
Ricki: We got introduced to Kindara first through Holly’s book and we have met with them and discussed their work with their app and new wireless basal body thermometer, Wink. They want to democratize this knowledge, make it part of every woman’s education. They really think it could change things for the better when it comes to women’s lives. We also spoke with the makers of Clue in Berlin. They’re helping women track every part of their monthly cycle. It’s great progress for women’s reproductive health. Just this week we saw that Apple finally decided to add menstrual cycles to their HealthKit app. This is wonderful. It means other apps can sync with the native technology on the iPhone and it means more women will come to realize they can track their cycles and benefit from being aware of this information. They will be made aware of that option.

Abby: Really the technology sector is leading the way here. We’re seeing them step up and help and support women who don’t want to or can’t use hormonal contraceptives. They’re making using Fertility Awareness Methods simpler, easier, less time-consuming and more approachable. They’re getting in the media and getting their message out there. And these people are also a wealth of knowledge because thousands of women are using their apps and talking to them about their cycles and experiences.

A lot of women take the Pill for other issues these days, not just for contraception. Do you want to explore this?
Abby: Absolutely. A couple of our film advisers work in this area - providing holistic, natural reproductive health support. They are working with women who have found the Pill hasn’t helped them long term. They’ve had side effects or the problems they had before have returned after coming off. They’re struggling to get pregnant. The Pill is prescribed for so many health problems these days and, although it’s definitely helpful and even essential for some women, it’s not the right treatment in all situations. In the Kickstarter video we highlight one part of this - how women are using it to regulate their cycles, even though they’re getting misleading information on that.

Holly: This is such an important area. More and more women are on the Pill for everything from acne to PCOS and yet the Pill doesn’t treat these problems, it only masks them. When women come off, most commonly the issue returns and might even be worse than before. We think that women have to suffer with PMS, like it’s our destiny, inevitable, when actually a lot of hormonal balance-related problems can be treated properly long term with alternative protocols. Women deserve better. They don’t have to put up with this stuff. And they don’t always have to use drugs that give them side effects to fix the problem. For some women, as Abby says, hormonal contraceptives are essential treatment. But we’re at a point now where it’s being doled out like a cure-all and it’s just not.

TruthOut Publishes "Reproductive Sovereignty or Bust!" by Carol Downer

Post by Women's Health in Women's Hands.

By Holly Grigg-Spall

[Originally Published in Society for Menstrual Cycle Research]

The recently released rom-com ‘Obvious Child’ has been discussed far and wide for its mature, sensitive and funny approach to the topic of abortion and yet I have not seen one comment on the fact that this movie also makes mainstream (and yes, funny) the topic of cervical mucus.

In the opening scene stand-up comedian Donna (played by real-life comedian Jenny Slate) is performing on stage at her local open mic night. She wraps up with a joke about the state of her underwear and how, she describes, her underpants sometimes look like they have “crawled out of a tub of cream cheese.”

She claims that they often embarrass her by looking as such during sexual encounters, something she feels is not sexy.

Of course, by “cream cheese” I immediately assumed Donna meant cervical mucus. Unless she is supposed to have a vaginal infection – which seeing as it is not discussed amongst the other myriad bodily function-centric conversations in the movie, I doubt to be the case – then it’s clear she is detailing her experience of cervical mucus.

Later on that night, when Donna meets and goes home with a guy, has sex and then wakes up in bed with him the following morning, she sees that her underwear is laying next to the guy’s head on the pillow. Not only that, but this is one of those situations she finds embarrassing as the underwear is actually covered in the aforementioned “cream cheese” or cervical mucus. She cringes, retrieves the underwear and hastily puts it back on under the covers.

At this scene we can assume that the presence of visible cervical mucus indicates that the character is in fact fertile at this time during the movie. Even if we didn’t know this movie was about unplanned pregnancy, perhaps we would know now. Apparently Donna is not on hormonal birth control, and she’s not sure if, in their drunkenness, they used a condom properly. So, I speculate, if Donna had known she was fertile and that the “cream cheese” in her underwear was actually one of the handy signs of fertility her body provides, then she may have taken Plan B and not had to worry about an abortion. But, then, of course, we wouldn’t have had the rest of this movie. We would have had a very different movie – a movie someone should also make.

But it goes to show how some body literacy might go a long way in helping women make more informed choices. The abortion sets her back $500 and causes some emotional turmoil. A dose of Plan B is cheaper and easier to obtain, although not without some side effects. Maybe even, we can speculate, if Donna had known she was fertile she might have avoided PIV [Penis In Vagina] sex that night.

It’s great to see a movie approach the choice of abortion as though it really were, well, a choice. But isn’t it interesting that in doing so it shows how women can be hampered in their choices by a lack of body literacy?

We often see women in movies discussing their “fertile time” in regards to wanting to get pregnant – and so meeting their husbands to have sex at the optimum time in usually funny, crazy scenarios. Sometimes we have seen women taking their temperature or using ovulation tests and calendars to figure this out. However, I think this might be the first mention of cervical mucus in cinema.

I had the honor of seeing this movie with longtime abortion rights and women’s health activist Carol Downer and getting to discuss it with her after. Carol pioneered the self-help movement and self-examination, adding much to our collective knowledge of our bodies. 

This is what she had to say:

"I enjoy the genre of romantic comedies with all their faults; I’m not as critical of them as I am of other genres, and ‘Obvious Child’ more than met my expectations.

I particularly liked ‘Obvious Child.’ I liked the uninhibited tipsy lovemaking scenes that showed casual sex at its best. Then, the complications that arose when she found out she was pregnant and needed to have an abortion and when he continued to be very interested in having a real relationship rang absolutely true to me. It’s just our luck, isn’t it, to get pregnant when there’s no realistic way to continue the pregnancy? The women, married or unmarried, who get abortions have some variation of this experience. When we have such bad timing, it’s the pits! I loved that their relationship grew in facing the regrettable necessity of the abortion and the recovery together, and you get the feeling that the relationship has a good future ahead of it. A darned good story."

"Home Made Menstrual Period for Game-Playing With Doctors” by Holly Grigg-Spall

Friends:

I’m sharing this blog by Holly Grigg-Spall, author of Sweetening the Pill because, like Holly, I think The Abortion Handbook, written by Lana Clarke Phelan and Patricia Maginnis, is as timely today as it was when it was published over forty years ago (with some outdated sections, of course). 

Holly’s comments about how Lana’s and Pat’s tips on “faking our periods” fit right in with women’s performance art work designed to bring menstruation out of the closet.  This reminds us that our work on our reproductive and sexual health cannot be divided into departments of menstruation, birth, birth control, abortion, menopause.  All these aspects are interconnected, and if we’re working for reproductive and sexual control, all our projects must be interconnected too.

http://menstruationresearch.org/2014/05/14/home-made-menstrual-period-for-game-playing-with-doctors/

We need to take back the Campus!

This article has an exciting title, “Take Back Your Campus”.  Unfortunately, even though it is a beautifully written expose of the epidemic of campus rape, it’s “call to action” is in fact an invitation to get on our computers and ask universities, governments and the police to continue their ineffectual policies. 

In the late 60’s and early ’70’s, college women were forming groups to stop rape on campus.  Actions included confronting a man identified as a rapist en masse, outing the same with leaflets posted strategically and forming all-women escort groups to take women through sections of the campus where rapes were occurring.

What was patriarchy’s response to the blatant actions of “strident” feminists?  They studied the problem.  They created task forces.  They devised new rules and structures, combined with educating men to respect women and women to take precautions.  The U.S. Law Enforcement Assistance Agency was funded to replace community-controlled women’s projects with professionally-run rape crisis centers where rape victims would answer questions, submit to pelvic examinations to make rape kits (many of which would languish on police departments’ shelves).  Women were pressured to become complainants; the goal was to arrest and imprison perpetrators. 

Almost fifty years later, The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Assault is continuing in patriarchy’s efforts to “protect” women rather than giving them more power. The Task Force has found that, (after having co-opted authentic action by the women themselves), their paternalistic, police-state programs have not improved the situation.  In fact, it seems to be worse.

Chandler McCorkle does urge readers to engage fellow students and citizens, presumably multi-gendered, to help change the way campuses are run across the nation.  Let’s learn from history.  If we want to recapture the outrage and the energy of the Second Wave, we females will organize ourselves, whatever gender we identify ourselves as, to fight against our common problem.  Collectively, we can demand better policies, such as using university or government budgets to fund our collectively controlled projects. 

We demanded sexual liberation in the 70’s; instead we got license to like sex, to want sex and to have sex, but we have not achieved the ability to exercise that freedom to have sex without fearing rape.  Why not?  What happened to those many thousands of women who took to the streets and who made these outrageous demands.  Did they all just give up?  Is it that women aren’t interested anymore?  No, from the moment we started raising our voices, patriarchy has been using all its weapons-- its universities, its foundations, its publishing industry, its police powers, to quell our movement.      

But, besides the benign takeover of women’s projects by government's pale imitations and strings-attached funding and academic jobs, independent women’s organizations have been hounded and harassed, many out of existence.  We at the Feminist Women’s Health Centers, one of the most successful and influential of outspoken women’s groups working for female control of sexuality and reproduction, were arrested for looking at our own cervixes in 1972.  Even though American women were given permission by the U.S. Supreme Court to have abortions and risky, medically-controlled methods of birth control at our clinics, our centers were not allowed to use cervical caps, herbal remedies or other women controlled methods of safe birth control or to have participatory clinics in which non-licensed health care workers shared self-examination skills with groups of women. 

Women are licensed to get abortions, but we don’t have the freedom to seek abortion without going through a gauntlet of screaming fanatics.  The government refused for several decades to enforce simple “disturbing the peace” type laws to restrain protestors from accosting women who try to use abortion facilities.  Finally, the reign of terror culminated in burning and bombing clinics, killing abortion doctors and their staff and supporters.  Our clinics have been repeatedly investigated for such things as use of guns and non-doctors to do abortions.  We’ve been charged with fraud.  Payment for medical services rendered at the clinic have been withheld due to suspicion of overcharging.  In all of the above situations, the investigations have found nothing.  Charges have been dropped and payment for services has been restored. 

We need to take back the Campus!

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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Stop War Against Women

4/28/12 - Unite Against the War on Women 

Los Angeles, CA 
Downtown: Pershing Square, North side 
532 Olive Street Los Angeles, CA 
10:00 a.m to 3:30 p.m. 
(includes March around Pershing) 

More info ... unitewomen.org

 STOP WAR AGAINST WOMEN

by Carol Downer

First, they arrested the prostitutes and took them "off the streets".  We did nothing, because we were not prostitutes.

Next, they took away federal funds to pay for poor women's abortion.  We did nothing, because we were able to pay for our abortions.  

Next, they bombed the abortion providers.  We did nothing, because we didn't like them anyway, and talking about the whole issue made us uncomfortable.

Next, they outlawed birth control.  We could do nothing, because --

We had not defended each woman's right to control her own body, including charging for sex if she wants to.

We had not stuck up for those of us who couldn't afford an abortion.

We didn't honor and protect the abortion provider's who make "choice" a reality

RESPONSE TO Darby Mangen's article "End Birth Control? Not if We Can Help It!"

(Response by Carol Downer follows Darby Mangen's article)

End Birth Control? Not if We Can Help It! ... Darby Mangen
Nineteen-year-old Lori looked at me incredulously. “What do you mean, make birth control illegal?” Yet it has become abundantly clear in the fast-moving developments of recent weeks that Republicans would like to do exactly that.

Unthinkable? Until recently, only the lunatic fringe talked seriously about it. Suddenly it has become a legitimate topic of debate — a right women are being forced to defend once again.

Next Front in the War on Women: “No” to Prenatal Testing
Rick Santorum has long opposed contraception and has pledged to preach about “the dangers of contraception in this country,” if elected president. “It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be,” he has said. The former Pennsylvania senator has also claimed that states should have the right to outlaw birth control. At the February convention of CPAC, Santorum took the position that insurance shouldn’t cover birth control because it “only costs a few dollars.”

Republicans have taken up the cause, under the guise of “religious freedom.” Leader of the Senate, vowed to not to let the birth control issue drop until they (the anti-birth control faction) wins.

Now Santorum has added prenatal testing to his list of unacceptable practices. “The government shouldn’t make health care providers fully cover prenatal tests like amniocentesis, which can determine the possibility of Down syndrome or other fetal problems,” said Santorum, who contends the law is intended to increase abortions and reduce health costs — totally brushing off the benefits to women and fetuses offered by prenatal testing and care.

Republican Fight to Control Women Approaching the Orwellian
Women Must Submit to State-Mandated Rape

The Virginia state legislature has passed a law, which Governor McDonnell is expected to sign, requiring women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before being allowed to terminate a pregnancy. The woman must undergo a medically unnecessary procedure, which penetrates her vagina, without her consent and against her will.

Rape, as redefined by the FBI just last month, is “the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

The legislature made it clear that this requirement is a purely punitive measure when it voted down, by a huge majority, an amendment proposed by a Democrat that would have provided the option, in some cases, of a non-invasive ultrasound. A similar law in Texas has been upheld by its State Supreme Court. The Iowa House is likely to pass a forced ultrasound bill, though the Democratically-controlled Senate will prevent its passage there.

A similar law in Texas has been upheld by its State Supreme Court. The Iowa House is likely to pass a forced ultrasound bill, though the Democratically-controlled Senate will prevent its passage there.



Response by Carol Downer
Hi Darby: I have a comment about your lead article re attacks on birth control. It's good, but I think 19-year-old Lori's reaction to hearing that the right wing wants to make birth control illegal shows me that our "pro-choice" movement has let them set the terms of the debate.

The attack on birth control should not have surprised anyone if they had a clear understanding of the basis for the attack on abortion. It shows me how effective the right wing anti-choice movement has succeeded in making people think that they are concerned about "the sanctity of life" or repelled by the regrettable necessity in the small percentage of later abortion of macerating the fetus. In fact, their strategy is, and always has been, to undermine women's ability to control their own sexuality and their own reproductive lives. The attack on abortion is an opportunistic tactical move to hide their real agenda by exploiting the uneasiness that many people feel about abortion, especially later abortion.

We who are fighting for women's rights to control their sexual and reproductive lives must constantly expose the real agenda of the right wing. Santorum states it in unmistakable language, "it's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." It's that simple and that profound.

Once you understand their agenda, it's clear that our agenda has to include women's rights to have sex with the partner of her choice, or not to have sex, even if she is married. If a woman chooses to marry, she has to right to marry the partner of her choice; if a woman chooses to have a child, it is her right to dictate the manner of her birthing, including birth center or home birth. If a woman of any age who has passed puberty, chooses to use birth control, it is her right to have access to all methods of birth control. If she chooses not to use birth control or her method of birth control fails, she has a right to an abortion. Just as the patriarchy's broad aim is to subject women to their rule, our aim must be to liberate women, and frame our political strategy in equally broad terms.