In her 2008 book Abortion and Life, author and activist Jennifer Baumgardner recounts a situation that led her to take a more critical approach to the language surrounding abortion:

“I had my own moment of truth during my fifth month of pregnancy … I was speaking to a group of Barnard College’s Students for choice when I referred to that object in one’s uterus when one is pregnant as a ‘baby.’

“A nurse practitioner who was speaking after me interrupted: ‘Fetus, you mean. You said baby, but it’s a fetus.’

“‘Oh, right,’ I stammered, blushing. ‘Oops.’ I felt foolish, caught in an ignorant mistake. Later, though, I realized that I had always thought of my pregnancy as carrying a baby — that was the word I wanted to use — and I was forcing myself to say ‘fetus’ out of fear. If I said ‘baby,’ that meant I wasn’t pro-choice, or with the program, or knowledgeable.”

As is usually the case, I found myself nodding fiercely while reading Baumgardner’s take on the situation. She was pregnant herself, thought of her fetus as a baby, and was completely caught off guard when she was basically accused of anti-choice pandering because of a simple word choice. Now obviously, context might have dictated that “fetus” was a better word for Baumgardner to use in this scenario, but her point stands: why does it matter?

I don’t think anyone could question Baumgardner’s merit as a pro-choice activist. After all she’s done for reproductive freedom (and the feminist movement at large), the NP’s correction of her language was probably less of an accusation about her beliefs and more of a clarification on what she was talking about. But again we must ask, why does it matter what she chooses to call her own pregnancy?

As a birth doula, I don’t use the term “fetus” with a client unless I’m using it as part of a technical term like “fetal heart monitoring” or “fetal position.” (Unless, of course, I happened to be working for a woman who used that term herself, but honestly, when have you ever heard of a pregnant woman calling her someday-baby a “fetus?”) It’s not my job to make a political case out of any one family’s situation, so why would I go out of my way to use a clinical term when I’m not a clinician? I can imagine how that would sound: “We can get the fetus into a better position for birth if we move this way.” “You’re doing wonderfully, you’ll be meeting your fetus in no time!” “Lovely work, mama, just let that fetus descend through the pelvis.” Technically, this language is accurate, but think of how cold and distant it would sound to an expectant mother!

In referring to her own body, Jennifer Baumgardner has every right to call her pregnancy what she wants to call it. If we’re pro-choice, shouldn’t we embrace that decision as well? We all know it’s a “fetus” or an “embryo” (depending on the stage of pregnancy). That’s not the point. The point is, if women have the right to own their bodies, they have the right to call it what they will. Correcting a pregnant woman when she calls it a “baby” is no better than the antis forcing the terms “life” and “baby” down the throats of vulnerable women when they’re considering abortion. Sure, we may have the medical terms on our side, but the pro-choice fight isn’t just a fight for medical science, it’s a fight for people and for self-realization. The right to realize oneself as a mother at the moment of implantation is as important as the right to never realize oneself as a mother at all.

It is understandable that many advocates for choice might be turned off by anyone using a non-technical term for a pregnancy. After all, such language has become a staple of our movement. “It’s an embryo, it’s a fetus, etc.” These short statements provide concise counter-arguments in moments where you aren’t likely to delve into the big, deep questions about fetal life and its value versus the life and will of its carrier. In a wholly political context, terms like “embryo” and “fetus” are technically accurate and therefore kosher. But for individual cases where a woman’s pregnancy comes up in conversation, choice advocates should remain open to co-opting the language of the woman, viewing the pregnancy as she views it, and allowing her to choose for herself what it is she’s carrying in her belly.

Senator Lisa Murksowski conceded to her opponent Joe Miller in Alaska’s republican primary last night. A Huffington Post article gives insight on why that may have happened:

She lost her primary for being insufficiently anti-abortion. (Here’s what that means for a Republican in Alaska: She and her opponent both endorsed a parental notification ballot measure, but he endorsed it harder.) Because there’s no more important issue, and nothing worse, than teenagers having sex.

Alaskans for Parental Rights, the group under the Alaska Family Council and big supporter of the Alaska Parental Notification Initiative, Ballot Measure 2 (2010), have endorsed Murkowski’s opponent Joe Miller. He’s listed on their site as an individual who supports Alaskans for Parental Rights’ interest in “returning to parents the very basic right of overseeing the medical decisions of their young teenage daughters.”

Ballot Measure 2 was approved with a 55 percent of the vote on August 24th. The Alaska Daily News explains what this means:

an Alaskan age 17 or younger could get an abortion only if her doctor notified her parent or guardian, if she obtained a court order or if she submitted a statement attesting to parental abuse.

Many are saying that her position on Ballot Measure 2 was not as clear-cut as Miller’s. While Murkowski went to a couple fundraisers for Measure 2, she didn’t allow Alaskans for Parental Rights to use her name in their materials. Plus, her voting record on choice is a bit speckled: “She has long said abortion decisions are between a woman and her doctor, and in her first appointed Senate term, she voted for a nonbinding “sense of the Senate” that supported Roe v. Wade. But she’s voted against federal funding for abortion, and supported a ban on late-term abortions.”

The National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay, anti-gender equality, unapologetically theocratic organization, is currently touring the nation in its “Summer for Marriage” tour. According to the group’s website, the mission of the tour is to “stand up and make it clear that [they] will not let marriage be redefined.” The NOM claims that “the institution of marriage, the very bedrock on which civilized society rests, has been under attack by radical activists who want to redefine its very meaning.”

Stopping in major cities all over the country, the NOM is promoting anti-gay candidates for office, intimidating local LGBT communities, and attempting to build its ranks. I say “attempting” because the number of NOM supporters at all stops have been embarrassingly low. According to the NOM itself, the “largest crowd” they’ve had at any stop has been in Madison, Wisconsin, with NOM-supporters topping 54 individuals. The kicker? Pro-marriage equality and LGBT rights activists outnumbered this “crowd” with a whopping 466.

The problem with this, however, is now the NOM can play the victim card. And play it they have. Just as their buddies in the anti-choice movement have done in the past, the NOM’s organizers have found a way to convince supporters that their unifying belief in marriage inequality is the majority opinion while simultaneously being a poor, oppressed minority. Their website is full of terms like “anti-marriage bigots” and “bullied by pro-homo activists;” not surprisingly, these blog entries contain story after story of undocumented (read: conveniently unprovable) “attacks” by the opposing side. One member wrote that the pro-gay rights activists “frightened small children.” Now, I’ve been going to demonstrations for a few years now, and one thing I’ve learned is that protests surrounding heated topics like abortion and gay rights are no place for children. Unless of course you’re parading your children around specifically to prove your… oh, right.

It occurs to me that the NOM may be intentionally drawing small crowds in order to put on just such an act. In fact, gay rights organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign fathom the same. From Fred Sainz, HRC’s vice president of communications:

“NOM’s highly-touted bus tour is less about so-called ‘traditional marriage’ and more about creating an elaborate and cynical stunt. NOM rolled out a summer of nationwide events in order to draw lawful protesters, all so that NOM and its allies can pepper ongoing lawsuits challenging public disclosure laws with made-up stories of harassment. This unprecedented victimization crusade is the lowest denominator of political activism, and it won’t fly.”

Stunt or not, I still believe it is vital for pro-equality forces to be highly visible at these anti-gay rallies. These are not your run-of-the-mill homophobes; the NOM draws the worst of the worst to their rallies. Still, the conservative-fringe nature of the NOM and supporters does not mean they lack political clout. These highly radicalized organizations, in the vein of Operation Rescue and the Tea Party Movement, carry a high amount of influence over the voting population at large: they are not at all without a financial and social power.

The important thing, however, is not to allow their intentionally infuriating rhetoric lead “our side” to becoming reckless ourselves. The anti-gay camp (just like the anti-choicers) know their presence is infuriating to us, and in many cases they present themselves in a way that is explicitly meant to incite rage from their opposition, rage that is videoed and edited together to make us look like the bad guys. This is not to say we should be at all apologetic in our counter-protests and demands for equality, but we need to be aware that everything we do can be used against us.

Now, I am not one of those activists that believes marriage equality will somehow end all discrimination against the LGBT community. How could it? But I do believe that the “traditional marriage” camp is using marriage specifically to target the LGBT community as a whole, not to mention couples and individuals everywhere who refuse to define our relationships in such strictly hegemonic terms. It’s one of the many things same-sex couples do not have the right to do in most U.S. states, and marriage in and of itself provides a way to not only attack same-sex couples, but unmarried couples, single parents, and couples with egalitarian views and “non-traditional” role sharing as well. Under the incantation “One Man, One Woman,” the National Organization for Marriage exists to challenge not only LGBT rights, but the rights of all men, women, and everyone in between to choose their own way to express their commitments for one another and define our families on our own terms.

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Is your city on the map? Stand against the National Organization for Marriage in your community by contacting Equality Across America or GetEqual today!

**This is a great opportunity that you all should check out!**

Editor Wendy Chavkin MD, MPH, Publisher Feminist Press at City University of New York

Debby lives on Manhattan’s upper West side. She is the 41 year old mother of 4 month old twins conceived via a Hungarian IVF clinic, and of 3 year old Lindsay, adopted from a Chinese orphanage at 11 months of age.

Basha lost her job in Poland when she became pregnant and could not find another. So she left her 7 month old son with her grandmother and left Poland. She now works off the books as a nanny in London for Gemma and Erik who have a 2 year old.

Gita lives outside of Bangalore and is the married mother of two. She has never had a Pap test. She is undergoing hormonal stimulation of ovulation so that she can donate ova to her sister who has not become pregnant in five years of marriage.

These stories signify a world in flux about the most intimate of human connections, a world wide open to a host of possibilities for reconfiguring family and parenthood, and perhaps of liberating women from the constraints of reproductive biology. The physical, emotional and caring aspects of motherhood are separable in new ways, pushed by demographic shifts, bio-technological innovations and global travel of babies, women, body parts, information, and technologies.

This is a call for submission of literary works: contemporary short stories, memoirs, and creative nonfiction that convey the transformation of motherhood in the globalized moment. Short fiction and creative non-fiction offer the chance to illuminate these experiences and to vividly present the voices of those affected. We are looking for short stories and memoirs primarily in English, although it may be possible to translate some works; previously published work is welcome.

We are particularly, but not solely, interested in the inter- relationship of transnational adoption, reproductive “tourism” ( transnational travel for treatment, gametes or uteri) and women’s migration to do nanny work, which together comprise the globalization of motherhood.

This will be an anthology directed at a general audience for whom the issue of motherhood-in-flux particularly resonates: those adopting and relinquishing babies; those traveling to obtain IVF, ova or “surrogates” and those selling body parts and services; those dependent on and ambivalent towards nannies caring for their children and those working as nannies who have left their own children and home behind.

Please submit by October 1 2010 to:

Wendy Chavkin: wc9@columbia.edu
Gloria Jacobs: GJacobs@gc.cuny.edu

After posting about a the sentencing of six women to jail after having abortions in Mexico, writers over at Gender Across Borders followed up with more abortion law news from around the globe.

In Spain, a new law recently went into effect allowing unrestricted abortions in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The law could technically still be suspended or challenged by the Constitutional Court, but this is not expected to happen. In New Zealand, MP Steve Chadwick has proposed a law to allow legal abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The anti-choice opposition cry of “no abortions” has shifted to one of just “less abortions”, strongly weakening the sanctity of life argument. Meanwhile a new poll in Australia has shown that many Australians support late-term abortions in certain circumstances. Currently, abortion laws vary by jurisdiction, and a woman in Queensland is facing up to 7 years in jail if convicted of procuring an abortion.

Far too often, being a clinic defender and reproductive justice activist feels like a losing battle. However, now and again we have victories. Sometimes we even have huge victories. Such an event occurred this past Saturday in Charlotte, North Carolina.

During the week of July 18, the radical anti-choice and anti-gay organization “Operation Save America” descended upon Charlotte, NC for their national conference. Their plan of action involved violent terms like “storming the gates of hell” and “unsheathing the sword” upon the “wicked.”

Not about to allow such violent, hateful rhetoric to go unchallenged, reproductive rights organizations such as Feminist Majority and the National Organization for Women partnered with Family Reproductive Health (a wonderful clinic in Charlotte that provides low-cost abortions, contraception, and STD testing) to defend what they were sure would be a rough week.

And a rough week it was. I was still on call for a doula client the first Saturday and was therefore unable to make it down, but the reports I read were staggering. The first day, about 15 pro-choice clinic defenders held their ground against 50 or more Operation Save America zealots. My friends who were there told stories of antis shouting in their faces for an hour at a time, violent rhetoric being screamed over the clinic’s privacy gate, and perhaps worst of all, pictures being taken of women in their cars as they drove into the clinic’s entrance. One clinic defender was told by an OSA “preacher” that she “looked like a lesbo” and should repent. An older woman was told that she should repent now because she was “going to die soon.”

This continued all week, though the clinics did receive some breaks: as part of their “national event,” OSA had more planned than just targeting clinics. One day the group hung graphic anti-abortion images on an overpass over I-77. Another, they stood in a busy downtown area with large images of aborted fetuses and embryos for everyone, including children, to see. They picketed a Charlotte mosque and several Christian churches that they deemed “not pro-life enough” and later in the week staged a “funeral for the unborn.” A “minister” from OSA had spent the better part of the week up in a tree on the public right-of-way in front of the Family Reproductive Health clinic, yelling at women and their support persons as they entered the medical facility. OSA had gone so far as to claim they had shut down Family Reproductive Health, though this by all accounts from defenders and staff members alike has been proven to be a complete lie (all Charlotte area clinics retained their normal hours and lost no appointments all week).

As I left Greensboro around 5am Saturday morning, I was prepared for the worst. Escorting women through a sea of your average clinic harassers is one thing– defending against such a staunchly anti-choice, pro-violence, and anti-law group of people was an intimidating thought, though I knew it had to be done.

As we drove up Hebron street, I saw a group of people gathering near the clinic. However, before I could have a second thought, I realized each and every one of them were defenders! We parked the car, walked over, and were met with warm greetings from about 30 pro-choice activists already gathered. Shortly after, new crowds of pro-choice defenders had joined, and we ended up with a contingent of 70 people before any OSA fanatics even arrived.

Okay, one was already present: “Pastor” Wallace, the man who had spent the better part of the week up in a tree, was already in position, but not for long. I later learned that several women’s rights activists had come by late Friday night and covered the tree with maple syrup. When Wallace climbed up his tree the next morning, he was greeted not only by a sticky mess, but also a swarm of fire ants. He didn’t stick around long, needless to say.

By the time OSA activists arrived, pro-choice defenders had the entire public right-of-way in front of the clinic lined with signs, banners, and advocates in support of choice. We stood elbow to elbow, occupying 100% of the curb all the way to the clinic’s gate, completely blocking any chance for anti-choice forces to harass women that day. A few OSA members weaved through our crowd, yelling random Biblical passages and calling us murderers, but the vast majority of antis stayed across the street, conferencing and looking a bit bewildered. Undercover police circled, keeping a close watch on the clinic’s driveway. Finally, in a completely unexpected turn of events, the antis packed up and left! No signs were displayed, no graphic images open for the public eye, no photos taken of cars entering the clinic… they were outnumbered, their “spot” was taken, and they left!

A few local antis remained, including one man that kept making a dash for the clinic entrance, then stopping short once he got to the yellow line painted on the driveway. He did this a few times, photographed and videoed by legal observers, until an officer came up and told him he was in violation of the FACE Act and would be arrested if he did not leave… and he did. About every thirty minutes, a known OSA activist drove by and yelled at us, took our picture, but just kept on moving.

The remainder of the morning was jubilant. It became more like a lawn party: people of all ages, races, genders, and affiliations stood with our signs, holding down the protest area, talking, connecting, and feeling good about things. Several legal observers went to another clinic that OSA had apparently relocated to, but seeing how that clinic asked for no counter-protesters, we stayed behind and maintained our grounds. When we finally closed, a clinic worker came out and told us this had been the first Saturday in eight years where women entering the clinic had not had anti-choice forces yelling at them! We all signed a banner that read, “Abortion Providers Are Heroes,” which we presented to the clinic as they closed.

I cannot express how wonderful Saturday was. Standing against the radical anti-abortion fringe can be frustrating, infuriating, demoralizing, upsetting, and chaotic. However, when we all came together to defend Charlotte’s busiest clinic, we won. The fight is far from over, and local OSA activists harass women at this clinic every week, but yesterday’s event gives me hope. Hope that we are a united movement, that we can bind together when it matters most, and that we can win.

Thank you to every one of the organizers, the clinic workers, the many people who came out yesterday, and those who will continue to do so to ensure women’s privacy is respected and maintained. Yesterday was truly an example of our strength!

As a young womyn of color I’ve come to understand how various reproductive health issues have historically, and continue to affect low-income and communities of color throughout the US in disproportionate ways compared to those who are more privileged and thus have greater access to certain resources. That is why, when I found out that Dr. Alveda King and her pro-life organization were going to be sponsoring “Freedom Rides” throughout the South in order to bring anti-abortion demonstrators to pray at the tomb of Dr. King on July 23 (http://www.sistersong.net/documents/Freedom_Ride_news_release_final_2.pdf) I honestly felt disgusted on so many levels. Not only is the organization using Dr. King’s name and legacy to advance and popularize their agenda (Dr. Alveda King is MLK’s niece), but they are also co-opting events of the 1960s (the Freedom Rides that CORE and SNCC at that time had organized throughout the South) in order to promote an agenda that actually limits many womyn’s rights and ability to truly be in charge of their bodies and destinies.

I completely understand that her personal experiences with abortion might have led her to her current views on the issue, but to start imposing those same ideals on other people and their bodies, especially on womyn of color’s bodies, is where the line has been crossed. As womyn of color, we share a (her)story of people and institutions having control of our communities’ bodies, sexualities, and reproductive abilities. From the control of Black womyn slaves’ bodies to the sterilization of Native American womyn to the oppressive birth control testing on Puerto Rican womyn, we have seen, witnessed, and experienced other people’s hands, policies, and ideologies on our bodies. We for too long, and still do, have known the implications of various legislation on our communities, and in particular to this event, what the impact would be to not have access to abortion AND other reproductive health services. For Dr. Alveda King and her organization to champion an anti-abortion stance significantly limits the gains and strides that so many powerful womyn, and in particular womyn of color, have made for our current generation in terms of reproductive justice and freedom.

As my fellow intern said, “MLK must be rolling over in his grave if he knew what is going down.” But what would Ella Baker, who at the time of the 60s Freedom Rides played a central role in SNCC and CORE, as well as other strong Black womyn such as Fannie Lou Hammer and Jo Ann Robinson, say to the co-option of historically important events that are being used to actually limit our reproductive freedoms as womyn of color? I’m sorry Dr. Alveda King, with all due respect, but you might want to reevaluate how an anti-abortion campaign that is trying to limit womyn’s ability to choose their own reproductive futures is a vision where “life, liberty, and justice” is truly a reality for every body. Just a thought while you board that bus on the way down to Atlanta on July 23.

Today, a broad coalition of leading women’s and reproductive-rights groups – organized by Choice USA, NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, and the Women’s Media Center – sent a letter to NBC Universal President & CEO Jeff Zucker, commending his network for airing a recent episode of the series Friday Night Lights. The episode, which aired on July 9, did something few television programs have done. It presented a thoughtful and compelling storyline about a young woman facing an unintended pregnancy who chooses abortion.

The episode and letter commending Mr. Zucker’s network and a list of signatories are below.

Please join us in thanking NBC by writing on their Facebook wall or Tweeting them.

An Open Letter to NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker:

We commend your network for airing the “I Can’t” episode of Friday Night Lights on July 9.

As organizations and individuals who advocate on behalf of reproductive health and rights, we appreciate seeing such an honest depiction on network television of a young woman’s decision to choose abortion.

No television program can fully reflect reality, but Friday Night Lights showed the personal experience a woman goes through to make her choice. This episode also incorporated discussions of the state laws that can make the situation even more difficult for young women.

Thank you again for your willingness to portray the decision to choose abortion honestly, especially when most networks never show this choice or discuss it thoughtfully.

We hope the entertainment industry takes note. There is room in prime-time television for constructive programming that respectfully addresses the full range of options for women facing an unintended pregnancy.

Signed,

Advocates For Youth
Choice USA
Civil Liberties and Public Policy at Hampshire College
Ibis Reproductive Health
Illinois Choice Action Team
Ipas
Law Students for Reproductive Justice
NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation
NARAL Pro-Choice Arizona
NARAL Pro-Choice California
NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado
NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut
NARAL Pro-Choice Maryland
NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts
NARAL Pro-Choice New Hampshire
NARAL Pro-Choice New York
NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina
NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio
NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon
NARAL Pro-Choice Texas
NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia
NARAL Pro-Choice Washington
NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin
National Council of Jewish Women
National Organization for Women
National Women’s Law Center
Physicians for Reproductive Rights
Religious Institute
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS)
Women’s Media Center

(List is in alpha order.)

The following is a CPC Watch cross-post.
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Those of us who seek out plain-English reporting on medical research often turn to Medical News Today (MNT) as a source of comprehensive health-related information. MNT is owned by MediLexicon International, a UK-based internet publishing group that boasts “timely, accurate and unbiased” reporting on medical and health-related research trends.

I have used reports from MNT to dispel the myths of purported “health consequences” of abortion and contraception from a fully scientific standpoint, which is why I was shocked to see this article published last week:

Researcher Finally Admits Abortion Raises Breast Cancer Risk In Study That Fingers Oral Contraceptives As A Probably Cause of Breast Cancer

My first reaction was to panic; I’ve been arguing the exact opposite for years now, citing studies from highly respected medical organizations, fact-checking every last bit of new information on the topic, often using MNT for just that. As a women’s health advocate, this was big news for me, news that I needed to spread.

Then I read the article.

The study in question was published in April of last year and has already been refuted or point-blank ignored by a number of medical research groups, the main reason being methodological inconsistencies and poor data interpretation. Technical writer Joyce Arthur explains:

The anti-choice movement has been touting a 2009 study (Dolle at al, Journal of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention) that concluded that abortion raises the risk of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) by 40%. However, they never mention that this is a rare type of cancer that typically strikes women under 40 years of age. Because TNBC makes up such a small subset of all breast cancers, the overall conclusion that abortion does not lead to breast cancer has not changed. As Kathi Malone, one of the study authors, stated: “The weight of scientific evidence to date strongly indicates that abortion doesn’t increase the risk of breast cancer.”

Even the reported 40% increased risk for TNBC needs to be treated with caution. The statistical adjustments the researchers used to arrive at that figure may simply be an error caused by not accounting for all possible factors that might be contributing to the increased risk. The abortion data was apparently not adjusted for important factors like income or education. Further, to put things in perspective, a 40% increase in risk is not considered substantial in the field of epidemiology — a woman’s risk of getting breast cancer increases by 200-300 per cent if her mother had breast cancer.

Statistical misinterpretation, poor sampling, failure to recognize other risk factors… not at all unusual for studies on the topic that “prove” a link between abortion and breast cancer, but that hasn’t stopped anti-choice organizations such as the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer from using it to push their agenda. The MNT article quotes the Coalition’s president, Karen Malec: “Although the study was published nine months ago … the NCI, the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer fundraising businesses have made no efforts to reduce breast cancer rates by issuing nationwide warnings to women.”

Maybe that’s because these organizations have done their homework:
Is Abortion Linked To Breast Cancer? — America Cancer Society
Abortion, Miscarriage, and Breast Cancer Risk — National Cancer Institute
ACOG Finds No Link Between Abortion and Breast Cancer Risk — American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Additionally, the Susan G. Komen Foundation published a highly comprehensive table on a number of studies regarding the purported link, examining the methodology and findings, still concluding abortion is not a significant risk factor.

So why is Medical News Today exhibiting such poor standards on research reporting? It truly escapes me, but I might have lost my faith in a news source I once respected greatly.

Does this mean we will all get a pay raise? Sadly I don’t think so. Contrary to anti-choice activists, abortion is not a big business. No one is lining their pockets. Providing care, support and counseling for women is not a big business. “Pregnancy crisis center” networks and their donors are big business.

I am a person who thinks in ideas. At times, I seem incapable of removing myself from ideas. I like my pie in the sky, and work towards my ideals in everything I do. I believe we are all equal – men, women, male, female, brown, white, purple, green – who cares? Every individual has value. That being said, I believe that every individual should be empowered. I am grateful that I have been able to go some of the best and some of the worst schools. My knowledge from both has empowered me. Telling a woman her only options are full-term pregnancy and adoption are false. Education is a force to free, not to limit.

Helping people understand their options, and providing women with choice is not brainwashing. I read somewhere that with every adoption referral Planned Parenthood makes, 62 abortions are performed. This statistic alone supposedly proves that abortion is big business. How about the statistic that over 35 percent of Planned Parenthood’s budget is spent on contraception? Perhaps that is another marketing strategy in the business of reproductive justice. If so, why does Planned Parenthood give contraception away? Those aren’t sound business practices to me.

Personally I see this as another attempt by anti-choice groups to cast pro-choice as another big evil in the world. Of all of the intimate personal decisions we make in our life this may be a big one but it is not so big that I don’t get to make it.

Taking away a women’s choice? Wouldn’t that represent the biggest business? Stay out of it, this is my business.