Choice Words

*Cross-posted at RH Reality Check.

As a college student, there are certain reproductive justice issues that are particularly close to my heart. The rising cost of birth control on college campuses is one example — paying $50 a month for birth control has put serious financial strain on some of my closest friends. Crisis pregnancy centers are another such issue. I have attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and been involved with the campus chapter of Choice USA for the last four years and have seen firsthand why Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) pose a huge risk to college students.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers often target college women on my campus. In Chapel Hill, we have a CPC called Pregnancy Support Services located very close to campus. Women in college who may be away from home for the first time and are sometimes also sexually active for the first time are particularly vulnerable to the deception of CPCs.

My involvement with reproductive health issues has earned me a reputation among my friends as the resident expert on birth control and other sexual health issues. I am regularly surprised by the basic questions I’m asked, or how often I’ll get e-mails from women who are barely acquaintances because there is something they need to know. These women need non-judgmental information. They’re dealing with these sensitive issues for the first time, often far from home, and they need support. I do my best to help, but I am not a professional.

In North Carolina this is all exacerbated by the fact that the only sex “education” available in public schools statewide is abstinence-only. If I were to share all the horror stories and lies that my friends were told in their high school health classes I would far surpass my word limit. Suffice it to say that college students in states like North Carolina, where education about sex and pregnancy prevention is sorely lacking, are especially susceptible to the tactics of CPCs.

Consequently, vulnerable young women go to CPCs where they are given information about the ineffectiveness of condoms, the dangerous addictive nature of sex, or the emotional devastation they’ll feel if they become sexually active (all of this is actually in brochures we collected from our local CPC!).

Because they can leverage women’s lack of education about their sexual health, crisis pregnancy centers are often located near college campuses. And these are all reasons why, when our Choice USA chapter became aware that Pregnancy Support Services was advertising in our campus paper, The Daily Tar Heel, we wanted to speak out and prevent the women on our campus from being deceived.

Our campaign is just getting off the ground but we have felt a sense of urgency as more young women - hearing about our stance towards Pregnancy Support Services - have approached us to tell their stories.

They have told us that they felt more confused and scared after their visit than they did before and that they had no idea what they were getting into when they went inside. So we have written a letter to The Daily Tar Heel encouraging them to refuse to advertise for this organization, and telling them that by doing so they are complicit in this deception of students on our campus.

We have also begun to compile a comprehensive list of all the organizations in our area that provide reproductive care, including crisis pregnancy centers, with an honest, unbiased description of the services each of those organizations provide.

After a lot of discussion, our group decided that our goal was not to try to completely shut down the CPCs operation. Yes, doing so would prevent them from misinforming more women but, as they also offer free STD/STI testing and pregnancy tests, we did not want to deny women another place to access those services. Ultimately, we decided that our primary goal would be to educate our fellow students about the Crisis Pregnancy Centers and the services they will actually receive if they chose them. After that - just like with all reproductive health decisions - the choice is theirs to make.

Young women like myself and students in colleges all over the country are at risk of being misinformed by Crisis Pregnancy Centers. Young women should be alerted about the true nature of CPCs and have protection from their deception and dishonesty.

~ Maureen Stutzman is a senior Political Science and Women’s Studies double major at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, who hopes to continue to pursue reproductive justice issues after graduation. She is the former Choice USA chapter leader there and was a Choice USA Reproductive Justice Youth Ambassador during the 2007 United States Social Forum.

*Cross-posted at RH Reality Check.

When a woman enters a bathroom stall almost anywhere on Georgetown University’s campus, she is immediately confronted with the ongoing battle between the stickers that adorn the inside of the stall doors. The university supplies stickers with information about its pregnancy support services while H*yas for Choice, Georgetown’s (unofficial) pro-choice organization, covertly distributes stickers that provide contact information for Planned Parenthood and instructions on how to obtain emergency contraception (EC).

So why the clash between the two groups? Why the conflict that leads people to tear down stickers or write nasty comments in the margins? The answer is even more troubling than the fact that these people enjoy writing while sitting on the toilet.

The battle wages because Georgetown’s Pregnancy Support Services is a Crisis Pregnancy Center. The services they provide accord with the university’s Jesuit Catholic identity, as does the fact that condoms are not provided anywhere on campus by the university and that a woman can only obtain the birth control pill if she plans to use for reasons other than contraception.

The services that Georgetown offers pregnant students are geared entirely toward women who intend to stay pregnant, as if no other option even exists. There is no mention of an alternative (you know, like the A-word), simply a list of resources to help students “handle” their pregnancies.

The only off-campus resource that the center’s website lists is the Northwest Center, whose slogan “Creating life and inspiring hope since 1983″ practically screams pro-life propaganda.

This isn’t to imply that Georgetown does not offer a wealth of resources and assistance to fully care for pregnant students. But I take extreme issue with the fact that Georgetown does not provide students with all the available options for dealing with pregnancy. These services, intended to give students a place to turn in a time of need, end up completely alienating those who choose to terminate their pregnancy, or even those who wish to discuss the possibility of doing so.

Ironically, the slogan that adorns all of those bathroom stickers reads, “You are not alone.” That is only true if your decisions align with the beliefs of Georgetown University and, ultimately, the Catholic Church.

H*yas for Choice seeks to make good on the university’s promise. We provide comprehensive information to students, not only regarding pregnancy, but covering all aspects of reproductive health and contraception. One way students can access these resources is through those stickers we place on bathroom doors. For a more complete list, they can visit our website at any time, or our table every Monday and Thursday between 10 am and 4 pm. We provide information, contacts, and also free condoms for anyone.

Many people view our organization as antithetical and antagonistic to the university. These are typically the same people who rip down or deface our stickers. However, the message we work to promote is one of cooperation. We realize that Georgetown’s Jesuit affiliation limits it in certain regards, and so we work to supplement these shortcomings.

We are Georgetown students caring for our fellow students - not some renegade group trying to tear down the establishment by flooding the campus with condoms. In the face of a lack of information and resources, H*yas for Choice exists to fill in the gaps.

And, of course, to provide quality bathroom reading material.

~ Samantha Demetriou is a junior at Georgetown University majoring in Spanish and Linguistics and minoring in Business. She is a board member of the Choice USA chapter and “unofficial” pro-choice student group, H*yas for Choice, and has been active in the organization for three years. The group is not permitted to call itself “Hoyas” because of University policies against the use of contraceptives and abortion.

*Cross-posted at RH Reality Check.

The first time I learned about the way crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) manipulate women, I was still in college and shocked to realize that there was a CPC right by my university. This particular crisis pregnancy center advertised all over campus — in the school newspaper, on buses, and even on dorm windows. At group project meeting my freshman year, another student told us we couldn’t miss it: “It’s the building with the poster on the window that says ‘Scared, Pregnant, Need Help?’ on it,” she said. We had had no idea the deception it represented.

During my senior year of college, I founded the campus organization Students for Reproductive Justice (a chapter of Choice USA). We were really concerned about the crisis pregnancy center and its presence on our campus. One woman experienced firsthand a disturbing visit her freshman year when she thought she was pregnant. The CPC advertised free pregnancy testing, so the student made an appointment. While she waited for her test results, a staff member read her passages from the Bible. The whole experience felt very odd to her.

We decided to go “undercover” and check it out. Pretending to be scared that I was pregnant, I made an appointment at the CPC and dragged my best friend with me. While she sat in the waiting room surrounded by baby toys and parenting magazines, I was brought to an office full of pictures of the fetus as it grows during a pregnancy and anti-choice propaganda. I couldn’t believe the blatant disregard for the feelings of the young women who came there. How can one possibly make the best choice when one option is everywhere she looks? One negative pregnancy test later and an Oscar-worthy performance of relief from me, and I was on my way out with a bunch of pamphlets on abstinence.

Our group decided that we had to combat the deceptive and manipulative work of the CPC. They were targeting women who were vulnerable. These are women who are out of their comfort zone and away from home. Many don’t have cars and cannot travel far from campus. And because we were college students, we didn’t have a lot of extra money, especially to spend on pregnancy tests. The CPC knew exactly what it was doing.

Our fellow students needed to know the places they could go to for reproductive health. Many students come to college having never seen a gynecologist and don’t even know where to go for one. We thought, how awesome would it be to have a comprehensive and non-biased directory for all kinds of reproductive health services? So that’s exactly what we did. The Students for Reproductive Justice spent an entire semester researching services and compiling a “Reproductive Health Services Directory” that included:

* Abortion, Adoption, and Childcare Services
* Prenatal Care
* Gynecological Services
* Birth Control/STI Testing
* Emergency Contraception (Stores and Prices)
* HPV Vaccine (Information and Costs)
* Sexual Assault resources
* Planned Parenthood clinics

And because we truly wanted it to be complete and comprehensive, we even included the crisis pregnancy center under the category “Anti-Choice Pregnancy Center/Free Pregnancy Testing.”

Crisis pregnancy centers establish themselves as a resource. Many women, especially young women, do not know where to go when they need reproductive health care. If they only see a sign for a crisis pregnancy center, they will probably end up there, not knowing the biased information waiting for them.

That is why it is so critical that we not only provide places for young people to go to for reproductive health services, but that we make them known and accessible. For example, at Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, DC, we have a youth clinic where teens can get free services in a confidential and safe environment. I’m so grateful that these young people found their way to Planned Parenthood and not a crisis pregnancy center by mistake.

Looking at the website for the CPC at my university, I have to laugh when I read their slogan: “You Have More Choices Than You Think…”

We sure do. Young women deserve unbiased care and should not be manipulated. Thank goodness we DO have more choices than the crisis pregnancy centers and the “choice” they force on young women everyday.

~ Lauren Bull is a health educator for Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington and witnesses firsthand the effects ofc omprehensive sexual education and abstinence-only programs while teaching sex-ed to students of all ages in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. Lauren is a blogger for Choice Words.

*Cross-posted at RH Reality Check.

Today is April 1 - otherwise known as April Fool’s Day. With that in mind, Choice USA, the National Abortion Federation, and the office of Senator Robert Menendez have deemed it the perfect opportunity to let it be known that we won’t be fooled anymore.

Who’s fooling us, you ask? Well, it’s a problem bigger and much more heinous than a typical April Fool’s joke you’d pull on your friends. And it’s a problem that’s affecting millions of women around the nation. That problem is the Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) that confuse and misinform women around the country.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers are well-disguised as all-options health centers for pregnant women and girls. They are also often well-funded (and sometimes with taxpayer dollars too). While many of them offer inexpensive or free pregnancy tests, they also prey on unsuspecting, vulnerable women, load them with misinformation and lobby them to become parents using fear tactics.

Young women, students, and women in lower-income communities are the most heavily targeted by these centers, with an abundance of misleading and deceptive “bait and switch” advertisements in university, college and community newspapers. Day in and day out, students on campuses across the nation tell the stories of young people being led into such centers, hopeful that they’ll find answers and options. Instead, they find misinformation, deception, and intimidation.

The worst part about it is that students and young women are some of the most vulnerable to these bait and switch tactics, and the negative outcomes to their lives as a result. Young women and students typically have fewer financial resources, fewer health care options, and relative inexperience navigating the health care system. It is for these reasons that they are much more likely to be drawn in by the lies in CPC ads offering free and inexpensive services. Women needing unbiased answers and medical care administered by health professionals walk into these CPCs (often staffed by volunteers with little or no medical expertise) unaware that they are being used as pawns by activists with a political agenda who don’t truly value their needs and wants.

Ads published in campus and community newspapers make promises like, “Free confidential services, all-options counseling, abortion information, medical referrals, and free ultrasounds.” However, the reality is that many women are denied the services they seek, or they are met with no information, misinformation, referrals to Ob/Gyns who refuse to provide abortion care, and forced ultrasounds. Some CPCs have even gone so far as to present pregnant women with congratulatory “new Mom starter kits” complete with baby clothes, whether or not they have made up their minds to become parents.

Choice USA and NAF have teamed up to support a bill that Senator Menendez is rolling out today called the Stop the Deceptive Advertising in Women Services, to help stop these abuses. Young women and students around the country are waging campaigns in their communities already, hoping to inform others about the misinformation doled out by local CPCs. This April 1st will be known as “We Won’t Be Fooled Day.” Celebrate with us and call your Senators to ask them to co-sponsor the bill too. And together we can ensure that by April 1, 2009, Crisis Pregnancy Centers won’t be fooling anyone anymore.

~ Kierra Johnson is Choice USA’s Executive Director. Her top priority is developing new leaders and since 1999, she has helped Choice USA transform its image, voice, and mission, from a pro-choice organization with a youth project into a dynamic, youth-led and youth-focused organization.

*Cross-posted at RHRealityCheck

As a sexuality education teacher, I imagine a time when every single American student will get comprehensive and accurate sexual health education. It won’t matter if they are students in New York City or Birmingham, Alabama. Every American will see that the real meaning of “moral values” is protecting our youth. We will all want to equip them with the knowledge and tools to prevent teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. We will do this because we love and care about our youth.

But I’m a realist. I have a sneaking suspicion that even in this perfect world of mine, there may still be issues. Even with the comprehensive sexual education we are so desperately fighting to implement, there may still be problems. I know this because of my real-life experiences with this issue and youth.

I can tell you right now what the two issues will still be.

1. Our youth are becoming sexually active younger and younger.

I’ve worked with sixth graders who are already sexually active. They began with oral sex in fourth grade and are now having vaginal intercourse. They’re not having safe sex because most of them don’t know what the phrase “safe sex” means. In many areas of our country, that lesson, if they have it at all, doesn’t come until high school. So when should we start teaching how to put on a condom? At the point we’re at now, we should be doing it in elementary school.

It’s bad enough we have high school girls performing oral sex on guys without protection or caution, but now we have it more and more in middle school and even elementary school.

That’s not okay with me. I consider myself a sex-positive person and I truly do not care whether someone is sexually active or not. But I do care when it involves children and young people who are not equipped with the knowledge to protect themselves.

I hate the idea that middle school students are having sex. But what I hate even more is that we aren’t helping them be safe about it because we think they’re too young.

If our fourth graders are participating in oral sex, we have no choice but to teach them how to be safe. But we also need to figure out what is driving this trend and how to stop it. Our children deserve better. We need to fix this issue before we’re forced to teach every eight-year old how to put on a condom.

2. Even with the best sexual education, they still may not listen.

We always have to remember that we’re working with young people here: invincible and care free young people.

You can tell them to wear a seatbelt. You can tell them to not drink and drive. You can tell them to wear condoms. But sometimes, they just do not listen.

And we can’t judge them because we’ve all been there. We all have been in that state of mind where nothing bad can happen and that the tragic stories on the news happen to “other people,” not us.

I ask the high school sophomores I have taught why students their age aren’t wearing condoms. No matter how many times I pose this question or how many different people I ask, I get the same answers every single time.

1. Condoms don’t feel as good.
2. We’re embarrassed to buy them.
3. They’re inconvenient and ruin the moment.
4. They’re drunk at the time and decide not to wear one.

We go through all of the reasons together as a group and I try to show them what the solutions are to these “reasons/excuses.” They know they need to use condoms but some of them will still refuse. They tell me they’ll take their chances.

And when I even bring up using flavored condoms for oral sex on a male, the laughter and rolling eyes begin.

So what do we do? We already know that abstinence-only education is completely useless. We also know that comprehensive and accurate sexual education does work for many of our youth. Unfortunately, we can’t even begin to fully measure the success or failures of it because not every American student is getting that education.

How can we move forward and figure out what else we need to add to sexual education if we still have people fighting to go backwards? Abstinence-only education sets our youth back and it sets back our efforts to help them.

None of us ever said comprehensive sexual education is perfect. There will be kinks to work out and gaps to fill. But we can’t even begin to think about that because we’re still fighting to implement it in all our states and schools. We’re too busy trying to help the children and youth our country has already failed.

*cross-posted in RH Reality Check

I was lucky. “The talk” with my mother was relatively painless. I have a very progressive mother with very informed opinions, and as a single mother she knew what she wanted and didn’t want for her daughter. She did her part, but I am of the opinion that it takes a village to raise a child and that my village tried…but fell flat, and the reasons are different than what you might expect.

There are so many ideas about what makes sex education comprehensive. Unfortunately, the current administration has decided that abstinence-only-until-marriage education is the most comprehensive despite the fact that it’s the least effective. Luckily, my educators did not feel the same way. My problem with the sex education I received had little to do with content, which was fairly comprehensive, and more to do with the delivery.

The way sex was presented to me was something shameful and embarrassing, more of an awkward chore than an essential component of a young person’s education. In the fifth grade, I learned about human sexuality and the fascinating processes of the human body as well as ways to protect myself against STD’s by using condoms and abstaining. But it was SO AWKWARD. What I remembered most about that day was my teacher trying to hide her face. She was so painfully embarrassed by the whole situation that she didn’t say a word and just put in a video. I learned about sex by a cartoon duck who didn’t teach me how to talk about sex, just what sex is. There is so much more to it though. Yes, obviously, it is a physical encounter between people, but when you start thinking about all of the emotional and religious justifications our paternalistic government has come up with to rationalize their abstinence-only agenda which would “protect” our young people (read: our defenseless little girls), there is clearly much more to sex than physical contact. I don’t agree with the agenda, but it’s pretty clear that sex is complicated.

The sex education that I received in high school was basically the same as in the fifth grade with a few more details and a condom demonstration that was ridiculous. No one took it seriously, and to be perfectly honest, it was about one year too late for many of the girls in my tenth grade class. Was it useless? Absolutely not. I learned what I could and appreciated the fact that I was getting a comprehensive lesson. But looking back, what I remember most was the embarrassment and the angst we all felt, especially our teacher.

Alternatives? Solutions? Yes! Sex needs to be discussed in an environment like the one my mom and I had. Questions were answered and encouraged, not shunned or averted, or answered by cartoon rubber duckies. Young men and women deserve to have meaningful conversations about sex in a learning environment so that they can foster an awareness that sex is something to be taken seriously but, if given the information and the resources, it can be safe and fun. It’s the same with other classes. You learn about a subject and then you’re expected to make rational conclusions and give an analysis of the situation. Sex is well…sexier, than that sounds but the philosophy is still consistent. It’s crucial that young people feel that they can talk about sex, and not in the “Dude, I got lucky last night” way, or the “sexual intercourse involves the sexual organs of two individuals.” It needs to be more of a dialogue between educators and us.

I wish I didn’t sit there praying the class would end. I wish I would have asked what happens if the condom breaks? How much is birth control? Are there any pills for the boys? Can I get AIDS through kissing? When, exactly, am I fertile? Can I buy condoms if I’m under 18? These questions may seem silly, but they were real for me at 15 years old. I learned the basics about sexual intercourse, but I was ashamed to be asking some very poignant and relevant questions. I had internalized shame and guilt. My education failed me. Sex is not bad! It’s not evil and it doesn’t have to be dangerous. I didn’t ever learn that from that damn cartoon duck.

*Cross-posted on RHRealityCheck.org

Introducing Jessica Haro, a guest blogger for Choice Words. Jessica Haro is a member of the Choice USA board of directors, a Choice USA History of Choice, Future of Justice trainer, a graduate of the 2005 Gloria Steinem Leadership Institute, and the past president of Stanford Students for Choice (a Choice USA affiliate). Jessica is 22 and just received her BA in Communication from Stanford University. She hopes to one day create a magazine that is a positive force in the lives of young teens. Her blog, Pink Wave Feminism, can be found at jessharo.blogspot.com.

I am proud to say that I was a recipient of a great comprehensive sex education. I came away from freshman Health with the proper knowledge upon which to base my decisions about becoming sexually active, and the sense to always practice safe sex. The only real complaint I ever heard was that there should be a refresher course senior year for those of us who just recently or had yet to become sexually active.

According to literature from the Santa Barbara School district, the program is designed to encourage abstinence until marriage and include information about human sexuality, parenting and contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, and AIDS prevention. While I don’t remember much emphasis on waiting for marriage, I do remember the constant repetition that abstinence was the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy and STIs, but if you’re going to have sex, you MUST practice safe sex.

Looking back I’m impressed at how non-judgmental and gender-neutral the experience was. Instead of leaving out queer students by defining sex as an act between a man and a woman, we learned about various sex practices and their risks using medical terms like ‘penile-anal intercourse’ and ‘oral-vaginal intercourse,’ which thankfully kept us safer than kids given an abstinence-only education who have unprotected anal sex, thinking it’s a safer choice because it’s ‘not really sex.’ We also discussed how and when to talk about sex and contraception with a partner (not while naked under the covers), and even non-intercourse options like mutual masturbation.

As part of the program we heard from various guest speakers. One young woman talked about her experience being raped, the various types of birth control, and the process of getting tested for STIs. I have to admit that while she was explaining how the speculum is used in a vaginal exam she stopped in the middle of what she was saying to tell me that it’s really not that bad, because apparently I had a look of absolute horror on my face. Two UCSB students talked to us about the dangers of mixing sex with alcohol and taught us how to put on a condom, though instead of just showing us they had a blindfolded girl try to put a condom on a banana, then went through step by step showing us what she did wrong, from the girl tearing the wrapper open with her teeth to being impaired by alcohol (hence the blindfold).

To balance these two speakers we heard from a woman who taught us about gender roles and saving ourselves for marriage. I remember being embarrassed when I learned that I apparently look at my fingernails like a boy – girls put their hands out palms down, while boys hold their hands palms up and bend their fingers to see their nails. I forget what exactly this had to do with sex… She also demonstrated the harms of having multiple sex-partners by repeatedly putting on and pulling off a piece of duct tape from a boy’s arm, showing how it stuck less each time, to teach us that each time we have sex with a new person our ability to bond with them is diminished.

At the time I took sex ed, I knew nothing about abstinence-only education and didn’t appreciate how lucky I was to receive a truly comprehensive sex education. In college I volunteered at the Sexual Health Peer Resource Center, and during our training we talked about what kind of sex ed we each had in high school, if any. I was appalled to hear what other people were told, and more importantly, not told about sex. To draw attention to this problem, Stanford Students for Choice, our Choice USA chapter, held a remedial sex ed event, and the SHPRC does educational outreaches all over campus, including many freshman dorms. This is, of course, not the answer, as about half of all students have had sex by the time they graduate high school.

With abstinence-only education proven many times over to be ineffective and even harmful as teen birth rates increase along with STI prevalence, it is essential that all teens receive a comprehensive sex education.

We are thrilled to introduce “Youth Voices,” our new collaboration with RH Reality Check, an an online community and publication serving individuals and organizations committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights. Youth Voices will feature the writing of youth activists working with Choice USA around the country.

Check out the posts (also cross-posted on Choice Words) which so far have addressed themes like “Contraception and the 2008 Presidential Candidates” and “Sex Ed in a Dreamworld.” Stay tuned for upcoming RH Reality Check themes AND to hear what young people have to say!

Enjoy and leave comments on both sites- let’s open up the discussion!