Megan Donnan (Bio)
East County Pregnancy Care Clinic in El Cajon California, a “crisis pregnancy center,” provides free ultrasounds to pregnant women.1 They will give the mother diapers and a car seat if she has the baby. They give no information on where to obtain an abortion. A new law says they have to disclose information about “low-cost abortion, contraception, and prenatal care” now available to low-income women. The clinic refuses to do so. Of the 170-200 clinics operating in California, 70 are under the supervision of a physician.2 “Many women can’t afford medical care and are unaware of the state financed option that includes prenatal care, delivery and pediatric coverage, or, if a woman chooses it, abortion.” The information they provide may not be complete, or even accurate, but at least it is moral. After the implementation of this law, the clinics exclaim but the first amendment.
Jerry Falwell, American Southern Baptist pastor and formal head of the Moral Majority, said, “The first amendment is not without limits.”3
Anti-abortion activist Troy Newman has touted himself as a champion for the children. He claims abortionists are systematically waging a war against the unborn.4 Those of us who have been born are of less concern for Troy. The Operation Rescue’s National Headquarters displays a memorial to aborted fetuses of the Abortion Holocaust. The mothers are not pictured.
Many medical procedures, including childbirth, are far more dangerous to patients. In truth, “complications from abortions are both rare, and rarely dangerous.”5 The woman is not in any serious amount of danger during an abortion, but then again that’s not a concern for us. Donald Trump claimed that partial birth abortions are a rampant epidemic: “You can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother.” Partial Birth Abortion is not an accepted medical term by abortion practitioners or the medical community at large. In 2002, only 0.17% of all abortions in the US were performed using intact birth dilation and evacuation.6
See the National Right to Life website for disingenuous alternative facts regarding this topic.
In 2016, Planned Parenthood provided 706,903 HIV tests and diagnosed 222,365 STIs. They also provided 617,677 breast exams and pap tests.7 Abortions only make up three percent of Planned Parenthood’s medical services. Nearly 4 in 10 women report that it is their only source of health care.8
We all know that health care is a privilege, not a right in the United States, you liberal snowflake.
More than 3,700 women have filed complaints against Bayer group, the makers of Essure.9 Essure is a medical device that permanently sterilizes the patient. Side effects include infection, vomiting, nausea, and displacement of the coils into your uterine wall that may cause a hysterectomy at age 26. Please save any potential babies before the procedure is performed. Essure was designed to remain in place for a lifetime but was approved by the FDA based on short-term safety studies.10 The current commissioner for the FDA, Dr. Scott Gottlieb was a former general partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a large venture capital firm that funded two startups, Conceptus and Gynecare.11
Conceptus was sold to Essure’s Bayer in 2013 for 1.1 billion dollars. Gynecare was sold to Johnson and Johnson’s Ethicon in 1997 for 79 million dollars. Ethicon is a transvaginal mesh brand.12
Transvaginal mesh is put in place for women with Pelvic Organ Prolapse.13 It was placed on the market after no clinical trial. NHS data suggest as many as one in fifteen women requires full or partial removal of the implant.14 Tissue grows around and into the metal mesh once inserted. Husbands report that sex after the implantation is like fucking a chicken wire. Wives report that they want medicine that won’t kill them. Removing it is nearly impossible. The device provides extra support to weakened organs and repair to damaged tissue. Subsequent life-saving surgery may be required.
Foreign objects in the body are undesirable, but sometimes necessary.
One in five women in college experiences sexual assault.15 Women who identify as lesbian, bisexual, or gay are more likely to experience sexual assault on college campuses than heterosexual women.16 Nineteen in twenty sexual assaults on college campuses go unreported, oftentimes because the victims feel threatened, or because they do not think their assaults were “serious” enough (i.e. forced penetration).17 Some girls “rape easy” according to former Wisconsin Republican Representative Roger Rivard,18 so can we really blame men?
Republican Representative Stephen Friend provides us with a solution for unwanted pregnancies from rapes unbeknownst to the best doctors. “The odds are one in millions and millions and millions. And there is a physical reason for that. Rape, obviously, is a traumatic experience. When that traumatic experience is undergone, a woman secretes a certain secretion, which has a tendency to kill sperm.”19
Please note, if women are unable to secrete the secretion and becomes impregnated, carrying the baby full-term is required.
Twenty states, including Washington D.C require a rape conviction to block parental rights of the rapist—they mean father. Libby Emmons from The Federalist says that:
“Decades of feminist discourse would tell us that women have the exact same sexual rights and privileges as their male counterparts do…the third wave states that women have the same right to engage in sex with as many partners as they choose, whenever they choose, and without any shame.”20
The real issue is that women are not shamed enough, but it is a terrible time to be a young man in the United States.
For every African-American woman who reports her rape, at least fifteen do not.21 Transgender women lack basic rights to their bodies in the eyes of the law. There is no federal law designating transgender as a protected class or even requiring equal treatment for transgender people.22 Women of color are pushed to the margins by men in power—and white women. They do more for feminism than many white feminists acknowledge. We talk only about Gloria Steinem, Susan B. Anthony, and Lena Dunham. They do not have the privilege of only focusing on gender issues; they must also combat the systematic oppression of racism.23
Feminism has to include women of color and transgender women. Feminism has to include women of color and transgender women. Feminism has to include women of color and transgender women.
Jasmin Kaur, a Sikh poet and activist wrote the italicized text below.24 I have added a few timely current events.
scream
During the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, protestors pound the doors of the Senate. Mike Pence came down the steps to chants of “Shame.”25 He was uncomfortable in a crowd of women without his mother (wife).
so that one day
a hundred years from now
What happened 35 years ago matters. You are still responsible for your actions when you are 17. Our actions today matter.
another sister will not have to
dry her tears wondering
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified, her voice shaking at times, but thoroughly recounted the trauma she experienced.26 Brett Kavanaugh, red faced and defiant, said he liked beer.
where in history
she lost her voice.
End Notes
1. Eckholm, Erik. “Pregnancy Clinics Fight for Right to Deny Abortion Information” The New York Times. 10 Feb 2016.
2. Ibid.
3. “Jerry Falwell,” Wikipedia. Last updated: 8 Oct 2018.
4. “Troy Newman (activist),” Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Newman(activist) last updated: 13 Aug2018.
5. Stern, Mark Joesph. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg Slams Texas’ Anti-Abortion Arguments: Beyond Rational Belief”, Slate. 27 June 2016.
6. Attanasio, Shannon and Lydia Mitts. “Reasons Planned Parenthood is an Essential Care Provider,” FamiliesUSA, 13 Jan 2017.
7. Planned Parenthood, “2016 Affiliate medical Services Data” 2016-2017 Annual Report, Planned Parenthood, 2017.
8. Ibid.
9. “Part 1: Venture Capital Firm New Enterprise Associates is Paid to Kill Women” Killing my Career. 18 Feb 2016.
10. Ibid.
11. “New Enterprise Associates,” Wikipedia. last updated: 4 Oct 2018.
12. Ibid.
13. “Transvaginal Mesh.” Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery, USLA Health, last updated: 30 Nov 2017.
14. “Get the facts about transvaginal mesh complications” Mayo Clinic, last updated: 2018.
15. “Campus Sexual Assault in Illinois,” Chicago says no more. 11 Sept 2015.
16. 1bid.
17. “Women of Color and Sexual Assault” Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence. 2018.
18. Marley, Patrick. “Rep. Roger Rivard criticized for ‘some girls rape easy’ remark”, Journal Sentinel, 10 Oct 2013.
19. Vierira, Prajna Brianna. “Rape Culture Sounds Like This,” Women’s March Minnesota, 5 November 2017.
20. Emmons, Libby. “If Women Want to Be Free to Make Choices About Sex, They Need to Accept Responsibility for Bad Choices Too,” The Federalist. 8 Oct. 2018.
21. Butler, Anthea. “Women of Color and Feminism” Rewire News. 28 July 2013.
22. Moreau, Julie. “Federal Civil Rights Law Doesn’t Protect Transgender Workers, Justice Department Says.” NBC News. 5 Oct 2017.
23. Butler, Anthea “Women of Color and Feminism”
24. Tatum, Alexis. “Sikh poet Jasmin Kaur calls out white feminists for co-opting her work” The Daily Dot, 8 Oct 2018.
25. Rosenblatt, Kalhan. “Protesters pound the door of the Supreme Court following Kavanaugh confirmation,” NBC News, 6 Oct 2018.
26. Barnes, Robert and Seung Min Kim, “Charges and denials fuel an emotional hearing as Kavanaugh nomination hangs in the balance.” The Washington Post. 27 September 2018.