Choice Words

Congratulations. Words seem too small to express the historic nature of this election. A country founded on and formed by racial slavery and genocide has elected a person of color to its highest office. The fight for racial justice continues, but this is a vital moment in our national story.

And now the real work begins.

Young voters supported you by an astounding margin, over two to one. Perhaps more importantly, youths played a crucial role in your grassroots-style campaign. A new generation of organizers has been activated, and not a moment too soon.

The past eight years have been devastating for human rights in the US and abroad. The neoconservative Christian fundamentalist agenda has attacked the reproductive rights and health of young people, a crucial part of any comprehensive human rights framework. Mr. President-elect, we need you as an ally in our quest for Reproductive Justice.

Federally funded abstinence only programs have left a generation unprepared to make informed decisions about their sexual and reproductive health. In this election young people have shown themselves to be highly motivated critical thinkers. Mr. Obama, we need you to fulfill your promise of providing federally funded comprehensive sexuality education that respects our intelligence and ability to make decisions for ourselves.

We’ve also seen federal funds funneled into Crisis Pregnancy Centers, far right religious organizations that often deliberately mislead women in order to prevent them from pursuing and obtaining abortions. It’s time to start trusting people to make their own decisions about their health, and to make available the necessary resources, including contraception and birth control, so those decisions can be informed and based on the a wide range of available options.

The attack on reproductive health has been part of a broader attack on the well being of Americans. Too many young people do not have the option of making the choices they want to about their health because they cannot afford medical care. Healthcare should be, must be a human right. This country is long overdue for a truly universal healthcare system. In a time of economic crisis the ability to afford medical care should never be a question. No one should ever have to worry about being able to obtain the reproductive healthcare they need.

Reproductive Justice is about more than access to quality care and prevention methods, though. Intersections of oppression along lines of gender, race, class, ability, geography, and immigration status negatively affect the reproductive health of so many young people. Environmental degradation isn’t just about moose – the harm we are doing to our environment has a huge negative effect on our health, and hurts those with the least relative power and privilege first and most dramatically. We need the right to have children, too. This is impossible when, for example, indigenous women find themselves unable to conceive or giving birth to children who are sick because of environmental toxins. Racist anti-immigrant sentiment and laws puts the health of undocumented immigrants at risk. We need you to be a president who will think about the impact to our reproductive health of every major issue that crosses your desk.

The past eight years have hurt us, but this movement has been fighting an uphill battle for a lot longer than that. For over thirty years we have watched as the right to have an abortion has been limited more and more. If young women can’t afford the procedure what good does that right do them? It’s time, finally time, to repeal the Hyde Amendment. It’s time to trust women to make decisions about their own bodies, not to limit when medical care should and should not be available based on moralistic ideas that ignore lived experience. Choice needs to be possible.

Despite legislation like the Violence Against Women Act, the nightmare of sexual violence has not gone away. Instead, such policies have led to a massive prison system that does nothing to make people safer, and in fact has the opposite effect. While we debate marriage rights, queer and trans youth are dying in cold blood. We need radical new ideas about how to address violence in a way that does not resort to government violence, to fundamentally change our culture.

US policy has a large impact on people the world over. War in Afghanistan and Iraq makes even the idea of reproductive and sexual freedom impossible for so many people. Mr. President-elect, end these wars.

And end the Global Gag Rule. Please, let healthcare providers do their jobs.

Mr. Obama, the challenges you face as you prepare to take office are daunting. I was grateful you recognized this in your acceptance speech, and heartened by your openness to hear from your constituents about our needs, our desires, our hopes. The above are just some of the issues my friends and I care deeply about. In the next few weeks, months, and years you’ll be hearing a lot more from us about these and other concerns.

The pro-choice youth of the US have a clear picture of what we want our future to be and are not afraid to demand of government what we need to realize that vision. I look forward to working with you, to an impassioned debate of ideas, to forming a government and culture in the business of ensuring human rights for all. Watch and listen, Mr. President-elect, and work with us, as a movement of young people turns our dream of Reproductive Freedom into reality.

Going to the gynecologist never fails to make me nervous. I don’t know why, really, but I always let it psych me out. Last week I went in for my yearly and, without fail, the night before the appointment I started getting the jitters. To make matters even worse, since I recently moved to a new city I had to find a new doctor so the fact that I’d be seeing a stranger only compounded my nerves.

Luckily, I got a recommendation for what I feel safe in saying is the best women’s health clinic in Chicago. Granted, I haven’t been to every gynecologist in the Chicagoland area, but I feel confident in my assertion. It was such a positive experience that I decided to highlight the Chicago Women’s Health Center; really, it’s what every trip to the gynecologist should be.

The oldest women’s health collective in the United States, the Chicago Women’s Health Center offers services in gynecology, fertility awareness, artificial insemination, counseling and support groups, and acupuncture (I was a little surprised by the acupuncture, to tell you the truth). As you can probably tell, they believe in a holistic approach to health care. In order to offer quality care to all women, all of their services are offered on a sliding scale.

I first became smitten with CWHC while filling out my medical history form, which one could tell was written from a feminist perspective. For one thing, this clinic does not adhere to the traditional gender dichotomy. Beyond male and female, gender options included transgender, intersex, and gender queer for both the patient and any potential partners. Furthermore, there was an entire section on emotional health that included questions about whether one suffered from food anxiety, and the health of one’s intimate relationships (ie: “Are you/ have you been abused physically, sexually, or emotionally”) and gave an opportunity to request referrals. They even ask if you would like information on orgasm and sexual pleasure! Although it seems like a trivial thing to notice, I must admit that I was impressed by how thorough they were before I even got to the office.

In spite of my nerves, I went into the appointment with high expectations, which I am happy to say were met. The woman conducting the examination was around my age, which made her easier to talk to. I was allowed to keep my own clothes on, which put me at ease. All patients are also given the option of inserting their own speculum- which was made out of plastic, a warmer material than metal, which thus eliminated the need to “warm up the duck lips” (come on, I had to say it at some point).

All things considered, this year’s trip to the gyno was a very positive experience. The CWHC offers health services from a feminist-approach, which I found particularly refreshing. Even my boyfriend (who came along to the office for moral support) said that he got “good vibes” from the place.

I’m not a big fan of dairy in general. In fact, if feta cheese weren’t so gosh darn tasty, I probably would have gone vegan long ago. I actually have been a vegetarian for my entire adult life, and I’m quite happy limiting my intake of cow excrement. I’m not going to sit here and lecture you on the many benefits of living without animal products and bi-products; just know that I personally support drastically limiting the amount of dairy in one’s diet.

That said, the following story still strikes me as being pretty strange. Apparently PETA, being the fine upholders of animal rights we know them to be, recently wrote a letter to Ben and Jerry’s asking them to replace cow’s milk with human breast milk in their ice cream. A Swiss restaurateur is in the process of making the switch (at least seventy-five percent of the dairy used in his recipes will come from people).

In their letter to the ice cream company, PETA says that “everyone knows ‘the breast is best.’” However, I disagree, at least with their assertion that this is common knowledge. I agree that consuming cow’s milk has a negative affect on one’s health. But human beings are the only species that consumes milk of any kind, human or otherwise, past infant hood. Where is the proof that drinking human milk (as adults, in this situation) won’t be bad for us? Human breast milk contains harmful chemicals like DDT, AND since most humans still consume non-organic bovine dairy, we still find traces of things like growth hormone (given to dairy cows to quicken the onset of puberty) in our milk. In other words, human breast milk might be slightly healthier to adult humans than cow’s milk, but I’d like to see some substantial research first.

However, I do think there is a bigger problem than the dubious nutritional benefits of human breast milk at hand here. Where will we find all of this human breast milk? Is it really a good idea to set up a system where we pay women for the production of milk? Call me a Marxist, but I see this quickly becoming a class issue. Because it won’t be financially secure women supplying our new source of dairy. This is ripe for social problems, and I personally think we should be investing more effort in developing non-dairy alternatives rather than finding a new animal to exploit for our dietary indulgences. Besides, we really shouldn’t give corporate America another opportunity to take control of women’s bodies.

Famed anti-racist author, Tim Wise, has written an AMAZING article about white privilege in the elections. But, of course, one part of the article stood out the most to me and which I think is completely true.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

The reality of this is that, ladies and gents, is very true. Growing up in a predominantly Latino and black community, most people expected for us to become parents as teenagers, while young white women are thought to just have certain “issues” that resulted in a pregnancy. There are so many factors, other than racism, that leads to this popular belief such as education, economic status, and, possibly, religion where there are many blacks and Latinos.

I’m so very glad that someone finally pointed out the still present existence of white privilege in terms of racism, reproduction, and sexism. Thank you, Mr. Wise, for being on point throughout your entire essay.

University Of Wisconsin - River Falls is also very fortunate to have Tim Wise come to our campus for a lecture. If you happen to be in the area, don’t hesitate to come. He’ll be here March 31, 2009 @ 8pm in the North Hall Auditorium. For more info or questions, just email me at yissell.asencio@uwrf.edu

September 14 marks the birthday of the late choice advocate Margaret Sanger.

Sure, Sanger and her work are topics of controversy in the choice realm and beyond, but I’m sharing this neat tidbit I found anyway!

findingDulcinea posts birthdays and interesting facts about famous folks. An excerpt from the segment on Sanger:

After seeing what she felt were too many women dying a result of unintended pregnancy, Margaret Sanger decided it was time for a revolution. She brought birth control—and controversy—to the masses, operating under the belief that every child should be a wanted child. In the 1920s, she sparked a heated national conversation about reproductive choice that continues to this day.

There’s been a Sanger-related debate or two on Choice Words.

What are your thoughts?

So, Jordin Sparks doesn’t regret her comments at the VMAs. I was doing some blog browsing and came across this little tidbit from Entertainment Weekly’s Hollywood Insider:

“It’s something I feel strongly about,” she tells EW.com. “I wish I would’ve worded it differently — that somebody who doesn’t wear a promise ring isn’t necessarily a slut — but I can’t take it back now. It was a split-second thing, and it came out kind of wrong. Still, I don’t regret it.“

So is that the same as saying, “I shouldn’t have said it, but I still meant it…?”

There was much talk about promise rings during the Video Music Awards on MTV. The show’s host actor/comedian Russell Brand made tacky jokes about teenagers and sex. More specifically, he took a few jabs at Disney boy band/mega stars The Jonas Brothers. Apparently, the Jonas’ wear promise rings, vowing to remain virgins before marriage.

Later in the evening, singer and American Idol star Jordin Sparks, who also wears a promise ring, addressed Brand’s humor before she presenting an award:

“I just wanna say, it’s not bad to wear a promise ring because not every guy or girl wants to be a slut, OK?

Brand would not let the joke go even after Jordin Spark’s comment, and it was obvious the audience would have preferred him to. He obviously crossed several lines with his foolishness, but I wish Jordin Sparks could have responded more tactfully.

And now for my rant. To each celebrity I say: Russell, leave the kids alone! Seriously, the night may have gone more smoothly if he knew when enough is enough. Dear Jordin, maybe you should have used another word like unchaste or impure instead of “slut”. No wait, those are also bad ideas and may make people angry. OK, done.

While I am not all that into purity rings or whatever, I am not seeking to debate whether or not the rings are “good” or bad,” nor do I want to offend those who wear them. What concerns me more than promise rings is why we so often talk in two extremes, promiscuity and celibacy, when it comes to sex. There is nothing wrong with the two, but what about all the options in between? Making healthy and informed decisions about one’s sexuality requires a lot more than choosing whether or not to do it! Right?

Students from Riverside High School in North Carolina are not only abstaining from sex, but from gym and chemistry too!

Read this article on the second page by student Alex Lew.

These two links speak for themselves:
Sex Is For Fags & Iron Hymen.

These websites are completely satirical look at abstinence-only education. What do you think?

Could taking Viagra ever help women? According to the Associated Press, “a new small study finds [women] on antidepressants may benefit from taking the little blue pills.” Apparently, for women who suffer from sexual dysfunction as a side-affect of anti-depressants, Viagra was found to improve one’s ability to orgasm.However, there was no increase in desire or arousal.

Why is this such good news? It turns out that over half of the people taking antidepressants develop some kind of sexual problem:

More than half the people who take antidepressants develop sexual problems, prior studies have found, especially for people taking drugs that work by increasing the chemical serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is thought to slow down orgasm, perhaps by diminishing the release of another brain chemical, dopamine. Viagra increases blood flow to sex organs.

I think this is a very interesting story, yet I have very mixed emotions regarding the potential outcomes. On one hand, if this could help a portion of women suffering from sexual dysfunction, that’s great. On the other hand, I think that antidepressants and other mood-altering medications (Ritalin and so forth) tend to be slightly over-prescribed in this country. Granted, they are important medical break-troughs that improve the lives of many, many people; I think there is a danger of using drugs to treat the symptom while avoiding the problem. That said, I’d love to hear what other people think about Viagra’s innovation.