Partial Truth Decision

"[The] partial birth abortion ban is a political scam but a public relations goldmine...The major benefit is the debate that surrounds it."

So said Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, a militant anti-choice group that blockaded abortion providers, in 2003.

Today's U.S. Supreme Court's Gonzales v Carhart decision upholding the federal abortion ban is based that pubic relations goldmine. It is a travesty of language bought and repeated endlessly by journalists who were sometimes uninformed and sometimes just too lazy to get it right.

Indeed, the travesty of language around abortion is so pervasive that even Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the decision for the Court's majority, in addition to using the term "partial birth abortion", also used the term "abortion doctor" repeatedly in the ruling. Opinion (Gonzales v. Carhart) Why did he not simply refer to doctors as "doctors", or if ob/gyns call them "ob/gyns"? If another surgical procedure were under scrutiny, would he have he referred to "tonsillectomy doctor" or "hysterectomy doctor"? Of course not. But those who want to take away a woman's human right to make her own childbearing decisions entirely have for so long used the term "abortion doctor" as an epithet that they have succeeded in getting even the highest court in the land to use their language.


But such bias is just the tip of the iceberg in the battle over what losing plaintiff Dr. Leroy Carhart has called "partial truth abortion". There is no such thing as partial birth abortion. The term will be found in no medical book. It was made up in 1995 by Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right-to-Life Committee, and former U.S. Representative and current Florida appeals court judge Charles Canady explicitly to confuse, horrify, and deceive--to manipulate language with the intent of sensationalizing the abortion debate. In particular, they intended to take the focus away from the woman and place the attention and the greater value on the fetus instead. The leading medical associations all agreed this was a misleading term, but the media never checked their language and by 2001, 90% of articles were using the term without so much as a "so-called" attached. As I reported in my 2004 book The War on Choice, an AP managing editor admitted when challenged that "partial birth abortion" was emotionally loaded, but said they continued to use it because it was instantly recognizable. Another major daily newspaper editor admitted it wasn't correct but said it was easier to use than alternatives.

Though an almost identical abortion ban was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the past, it was a different Supreme Court. Elections have consequences. Since then, President George W. Bush has had the opportunity to appoint two new justices to the Court, justices who are ideologically in synch with the biased language. That shift made all the difference to women today and tomorrow.

Now we have a landmark Supreme Court decision, built upon the counterfeit foundation of a made-up term that the media accepted and used uncritically, and that has propelled the highest court to issue a ruling allowing to stand a law which at a minimum:


1. Does not provide adequate exceptions for a woman's health, which means that a fundamental legal principle of the primary importance of women's health has been overturned.
2. For the first time upholds a federal law which steps directly into the physician's exam room and tells him or her what medical technique cannot be used even if the physician's judgment is that it is the safest to protect her health and future fertility.
3. Will not reduce the number of abortions but will over time, according to the doctors who know women's health best, cause an increase in medical complications, and possibly even deaths.

The public relations goldmine of those who aim for nothing less than to eliminate reproductive justice at all times from all women has paid off for them today. Language, after all, has consequences too.

xxx

Here's the Center for Reproductive Rights complete background on the ruling and the arguments in the case:

http://www.reproductiverights.org/crt_pba.html



For a little more context, here's an article I wrote about a recent case that took another step backward for women's health; it will probably be the next thing to come back before the Court.
High Court Case Takes Aim at Heart of Roe

Thank You, Imus, for a Teachable Moment

This is a Moment with a capital "M". The opportunity for fundamental social change doesn't come often, so let's take full advantage of it.

Shock jock Don Imus's racist and sexist remarks about the Rutgers University women's basketball team didn’t go beyond his typical bottom feeder discourse, but in this age of YouTube and internet rapid response capability, his sleazy pot shots against a target so clearly undeserving of epithets have captured the nation's attention. We’ve been riveted to the story and it has brought us together. Interest soon turned to outrage; the outrage continues to mushroom into new social expectations. Suddenly it is Imus who’s shocked. Even Oprah is talking about it, and when a story reaches that level, you know Imus had better head for rehab fast because the times, they are a-changing.

Racism and sexism are so pervasive that too often we allow them to wash over us without pricking our consciousness let alone our consciences. But Imus's little tete a te with his executive producer Bernard McGuirk-who is equally culpable-was so awful, so blatant, so gratuitous it created a tsunami that might just wash away the toxicity regularly spewed by destruction derby talk shows.

Some of the current media chatter addresses important principles such as free speech, the difference between political speech and hate speech, and the appropriate punishment for Imus given that many rappers--not to mention other Limbaugh-like talk show hosts--have said similar things. This is a useful conversation, but should not divert us from the opportunity afforded by this Moment to expose the consequences of racism and sexism in real people's everyday lives.

That’s why it is overall a very good thing for a man who is such a symbol of the last bastion of unfettered white male supremacy to get canned for so clearly overstepping the bounds of appropriate speech, legally protected or not, political speech or not. I say, pour it on and grab his employers by the short hairs while the public's short attention span is focused on that vulnerable spot.

At the same time, the Scarlet Knights will better serve the cause of righting the injustice done to them by playing the role of teachers rather than victims. Based on my own experience, I generally counsel people in these situations to toughen up and not take media attacks personally because it's never about them; it's always about power: the bully’s fear of losing his power over them. Goodness knows, during my 30 years in the public eye advocating for women’s reproductive rights, I received the gamut of such ad hominem attacks from picketers wielding signs at my home to being called unprintable names on the airwaves to having a political cartoonist caricature me as a Nazi. The last felt to me like the equivalent of Imus calling the Rutgers women "nappy headed ho's".

But toughening up does not mean that those who are attacked should isolate themselves and refrain from fighting back in a positive way, especially when we are in a Moment.

Imus unwittingly gave his would-be victims a bully platform from which to teach America the wrongness of mindless bigotry. He attacked individuals rather than ideas, actions, policies. Imus wasn't talking issues at all. He gratuitously disparaged young women who were just playing basketball. He did it because he thought he could. His power to do so had never been challenged. Perhaps now he will learn along with the rest of us that it's fine to rough up ideas, but not to rough up people simply because of attributes they were born with. The difference is in category, not just in gradation.

So let's give a big round of thanks to Don Imus for awakening the nation to this distinction. He created a teachable Moment in which we have the opportunity, if we act on the conversation we are now having with ourselves, to make change for the better, both in our culture and in our own hearts.

The Great Scrotum Flap

Did you read the New York Times front-page article by Julie Bosman on school librarians’ censorship of a Newberry Award-winning children’s book “The Higher Power of Lucky”?

It’s creating quite a flap as well it should. I wrote the following letter to Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Connie Schultz in response to her excellent column “One Word Ignites Some Librarians’ Ire”:

Re: Your great column on the great scrotum flap

Dear Connie,

Yesterday morning when I read the piece about "The Higher Power of Lucky" in the NY Times, I immediately sat down to write an op ed myself. But I could not come close to the one you wrote and I want to thank you for it. In particular, your sharing of the personal story is always the most compelling truth.

Honestly, is this flap not the lowest denominator of silly? What an illustration of what I call America's difficult relationship with sex! I thought about my four grandsons, age 9-13, just about the age range for this book, and hoped to goodness that they and their female peers know and can use correctly the word "scrotum" by now.

Sadly, this whole fracas will continue to repeat itself until our society does come to terms with sex and sexuality in a healthy way, until we boot the abstinence only people out of our schools and the real perverts--those who would rather keep people ignorant than informed--out of our school's libraries.

All best,

Gloria Feldt

There's also another great article by Rabbi Marc Gellman about it in Newsweek this week.

Just a couple of days previously, I’d received this post from Rev. Debra W. Haffner’s blog. She said:

I want you to look carefully at the sign for this theater in Atlantic Beach, Florida...what's showing tonight and through the weekend?

That's right. "The Hoohaa Monologues."

The WHAT?

It turns out that a woman passing by complained to the manager of the theater that the sign read "The Vagina Monologues." According to him, she explained that she didn't want to tell her daughter, who is old enough to read, what a vagina was.

I'll forgive you if you're smiling about now....but it really isn't funny. In fact, it basically proves the point of Eve Ensler's play. By denying women the names of the parts of their body, we in essence are denying their sexuality. If you've read my book, "From Diapers to Dating", you know that I believe that even the smallest children need to learn the names of the parts of body -- all the parts. It teaches them that all body parts have value, that we can talk about sexuality in our homes, it doesn't instill shame, and it equips them to tell if someone tries to touch them inappropriately. I'd be happy to have the Religious Institute buy that mother a ticket to the play...I think she needs it. And her daughter needs to know not only that she has a vagina, but a vulva and clitoris as well.

Right you are, Debra! Ignorance has never been bliss, and in fact it almost guarantees unhealthy decisions simply because people do not have a clue what their choices mean. And as I said in my letter to Connie Schultz, the solution is to create a healthier relationship with sex in our culture. We’ll save ourselves as adults a lot of angst, but more important, we’ll save our children a lot of heartbreak and disease.

Nancy Pelosi's Greatest Asset

After two days of pounding Washington’s marble hallways last week while the 110th Congress was sworn in, my flat-heeled boot clad feet were killing me. That Nancy Pelosi manages to do it in Jimmy Choo heels was enough to convince me of her resolve.

When Pelosi accepted her gavel, she said she was “breaking the marble ceiling.” But what difference does it make that Pelosi has become the first woman speaker in our nation’s history? After its first 100 hours in which the House is taking up ethics reform, raising the minimum wage, lifting restrictions on funding stem cell research, lowering interest on student loans, permitting the Feds to wrestle Medicare drug prices down a few notches, and nipping subsidies for oil and gas producers—all measures on which the new Democratic majority agrees and can even pull a few Republican votes—will Pelosi do things differently, fulfilling her pledge of civility and partnership over partisanship?

Shortly after being sworn in to cheers from a packed gallery, Kirsten Gillibrand, new Democratic congresswoman from upstate New York’s 20th District, was, she said, “on cloud nine. I’m so aware of the historic significance of this moment and thrilled to be part of it.” Gillibrand’s victory over a long-time Republican incumbent was one of the pivotal wins that tipped the majority to the Democrats.

We were standing amid a chaotic mass of constituents waiting to get pictures taken with their member and the speaker outside the Rayburn room—named for legendary Texan, Sam Rayburn, who presided for 17 years as speaker during the 1940s and 1950s. Washington is obsessed with the photo op because leadership is about the creation of meaning. The now ubiquitous photo of Pelosi brandishing a giant wooden gavel and smiling among her own and other members’ children and grandchildren telegraphed her message precisely: I am a woman, a liberal Democratic pro-choice feminist woman no less, and I love children. My agenda will be about the future not the past. So get off my case, all of you who want to brand me as lacking those values. I’m a mom, and I know how to run a house. I’m taking this Congress forward. (Gracious smile here.) Do come with me.

I waited among another group of family, staff, and friends for the swearing in of Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat representing Southern Arizona’s 8th district and one of the youngest of the new congresswomen at age 36. Giffords was in constant motion, excited at the prospect of presiding over the House session from 11 pm until midnight that evening—prime TV time for C-Span watching constituents back home. Pelosi has made a number of smart moves like this: giving new members from swing districts plum assignments—Gillibrand and Giffords are both on the prestigious Armed Services Committee—and substantive speaking roles to help them keep their seats in ‘08. Pelosi photo accomplished, the Gifford contingent went down to the Capitol rotunda for a private swearing in by former Governor Bruce Babbitt—before a statue of John C. Greenway, a mining magnate whose widow Isabella become Arizona’s first congresswoman in 1933. Giffords promised to follow in Isabella’s footsteps as she thanked women who paved her way and pulled her up.

Later, Giffords told me she had worked with a woman speaker before, a Republican who led the Arizona legislature. A feminist in today’s terms, she thinks, is “a woman who is strong, self-sufficient, [and] moves beyond a gender focus.” She said Speaker Pelosi “surrounds herself with smart, good people. She knows being a Washington insider isn't a good thing. When we had a briefing on Iraq, she had all the freshmen ask questions first. And she is giving freshmen women roles not considered typical to women. I don’t know whether a man would have that sensitivity.”

Pelosi has more women to consider for assignments than available to her predecessors. Though still far from parity, this Congress includes 74 women in the House and 16 in the Senate, marking a recovery from the setbacks of the 1994 Gingrich revolution that wiped out gains made during the 1992 “year of the woman” elections. No victory is forever. And Giffords is only Arizona’s third woman member of Congress—an illustration that more women need to be in the pipeline if the next generation is to achieve gender balance.

Speaker Pelosi may well inspire more women to become candidates. Newly elected Congresswoman Mazie Hirono of Hawaii cited a growing body of research that finds most women run because other people encourage them, whereas men “think it’s their God-given right to seek office.” Hirono spearheaded a political action committee to raise money for women candidates, named in honor of the late Congresswoman Patsy Mink. “If you never see a woman leading, it is very hard to envision a woman as speaker of the House and second in line of succession to the presidency,” said Hirono. “The very fact that Pelosi is there makes a difference.”

Hirono is a role model herself. She served in the state legislature before she was elected lieutenant governor. She then ran for governor and lost one of the few statewide races that have pitted two women against each other. But Hirono came right back, barely winning a hotly contested Democratic primary for her Congressional seat before coasting to victory in the general election. Women have to learn to take those risks and not be deterred by defeat, she says.

Encouragement can work both ways. The new congresswomen are a stellar bunch who can be a huge support to Speaker Pelosi. Democrats are far more diverse and far less trusting of power than Republicans tend to be. But if the speaker is as smart as I think she is, she will spend less time cultivating the “Blue Dog” Democrats and recognize the progressive women as her greatest asset.

Sam Rayburn was fond of saying, “Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build it.” Pelosi has the enormous challenge of being the right woman for this time—the carpenter who builds a better future for those fresh-faced children surrounding her in that iconic photo.

An Auspicious D.C. Tea Party

Change is in the air this week in Washington, D.C. “This is what happens when they ban smoking in those smoke-filled rooms,” observed Congresswoman Rosa De Lauro (D-CT) as she welcomed some 1,000 women to high tea January 3 in honor of the first female speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

The mood in the Mellon Auditorium on Capitol Hill was buoyant among this gathering of partisans and issue advocates. Many, like me, have tasted both victory and defeat time after time in the struggle to advance liberty and justice for women. Now, with Nancy Pelosi leading a newly elected Democratic majority, a question was raised repeatedly in conversations throughout the elegant hall: “Will this time really be different?”

Change can be elusive in a Washington culture that seems to suffer from attention deficit disorder. But a more enduring transformation could be seen in the nature of the audience itself. Collectively, these women had raised or given millions of dollars and worked millions of hours on behalf of candidates. Women have always been the envelope stuffers and door-knock organizers in political campaigns. Now—thanks to the clout that results from gains in economic equality won through many election cycles—we’re also writing the big checks. And we’re writing them for the causes and candidates we choose from bank accounts we have earned ourselves.

Economic power and political power are joined at the hip, as the guys have always known. And despite some backlash declarations that feminism is dead from those who would like to see it so, the truth is that girls today grow up with an entirely different outlook on their lives than I had as a youth. So Nancy Pelosi’s self-assured, elementary school-aged granddaughter Madeline could say about the woman she calls Mimi: “Because of Mimi, more women can get jobs like this.”

Much of the rhetoric and symbols of the day’s political theater positioned Pelosi as a family-first kind of woman, one who learned her values from family and church and focuses on making life better for others. All that sounds pretty traditional. But maybe, like Nixon going to China, it takes what looks like a traditional woman to make lasting, radical changes in public policy.

“For every little girl who has wondered what she can be when she grows up, the glass ceiling in this institution has been shattered forever,” declared DeLauro. “When women are elected, the agenda changes."

I doubt that because a woman has ascended to the position of speaker, all Americans will suddenly have health care, the war in Iraq will end immediately, Congressional ethics will no longer be an oxymoron, and vicious debates over stem cell research and abortion will be transformed into positive initiatives to improve public health. But each step that takes our nation a little closer to full equality for all its citizens is a change to be celebrated with high tea or other libations, as much for how we have changed ourselves as for how our efforts have changed our government.

Radio Interview with Lisa Birnbach on Greenstone Media on 12/5/2006

Click here to hear Gloria's interview with Lisa Birnbach on Greenstone Media about Bush's appointment of anti-birth control Dr. Keroack to head nation's birth control program.

Humpty Dumpty Keroack

With W, up is down and down is sideways. We've grown inured to the duplicity, the sleight of hand, the wink while Haliburton profits as our sons and daughters die in Iraq, the ruthlessness with which the 1 percent get richer while the rest of us get a burgeoning national debt and fewer of us get health insurance.

So it's no surprise that the man talks piously about creating a culture of life while taking funding from lifesaving prevention programs like family planning and giving it to abstinence only preachers. This makes the U. S. the laughingstock of the world's public health organizations and in the end paradoxically increases disease, unintended pregnancies, abortions, and deaths.

Usually, however, this administration and its right wing buddies at least try to obfuscate their Orwellian redefinitions. Not so, however, in the president's latest and most arrogant "in-your-face, voters, ‘cause I'm-the-decider" action. I'm speaking about the appointment of Dr. Eric Keroack to the position of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs, DASPA for short.

Keroack, who opposes birth control, will be in charge of the nation's major family planning program, Title X of the Public Health Services Act , which provides contraceptive services to over 5 million American women each year through some 4500 public health facilities, preventing 1.3 million unintended pregnancies and hundreds of thousands of abortions, and saving taxpayers $3 on Medicaid pregnancy and newborn-related care for every dollar spent.

Yes, you read that right. A man who opposes birth control has been put in charge of the nation's major providers of birth control services. Never mind that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes family planning as one of “Ten Greatest Public Health Achievements of the 20^th Century” for good reason.

Keroack—a non-board certified ob/gyn—at the time of his appointment was the medical director of A Woman's Concern, one of many chains of so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers whose purpose is to dissuade women from choosing abortion under any circumstances. The methods used by these centers range from showing women misleading photos of fetal development to giving them misinformation about the health risks of abortion. Whatever works, it seems, is their motto. In my own personal experience with these clinics, I've known one to lock women in a room to watch videos for so long that they missed their appointments at a nearby reproductive health center and another that advised women to pray to Jesus rather than to giving her the requested information about birth control. Praying is not a bad idea, but it has not been known to be a very effective contraceptive method.

A policy statement of A Woman's Concern says, “A Woman’s Concern does not distribute, or encourage the use of, contraceptive drugs and devices…A Woman’s Concern is persuaded that the crass commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading to human sexuality, and adverse to human health and happiness.”(http://www.slate.com/id/2154249/) The organization supports sexual abstinence until marriage, opposes contraception and does not distribute information promoting birth control at its six centers in eastern Massachusetts. Keroack also serves on the advisory committee for the Abstinence Clearing House and has alleged that pre-marital sex changes the brain chemistry so that bonding to another person becomes difficult.

It's no surprise that the ideological right opposes abortion, but now it should be abundantly clear they also oppose birth control. Down is up. It's not that they don't understand birth control prevents abortion; it's that they don't want women to have birth control in the first place. Or the sexual and reproductive self-determination that goes with the ability to plan and space one’s own childbearing.

Keroack's appointment does not require Congressional confirmation. But that doesn't mean his appointment should be allowed to stand. For further media reports and editorial comments: Washington Post, Boston Globe, Associated Press, United Press International , Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, U.S. News & World Report.

With enough public outcry, this Humpty Dumpty can and should fall down.

© Gloria Feldt 2006

WHAT DOES THE ELECTION MEAN?

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A VOTE MAKES—BUT WILL IT?

So now President Bush wants to cooperate. Now he wants to reach across the aisle. Now he wants to work together with the Democrats, finally to show he can be that “uniter not divider” of his 2000 campaign promises. That perhaps he isn’t even the sole decider of everything after all. What? Why would any Democrat in his or her right mind give this man the time of day?

Bush puffed and preened and bared his teeth before the election. But once he "got thumped", as he put it, all that puffery deflated in a nanosecond just like you might see with any other bully. Rummy (who could do no wrong 24 hours previously) was shown the door the day after the elections, Congresswoman and probable next Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi--taunted throughout the election season as the very personification of liberal, liberal, liberal evil--was invited to lunch at the White House, and the president allowed as how he wants to work with the same Democrats he's been wringing out and hanging up to dry for the last 6 years. And all too often, they have been complicit in their humiliation.

This puts the Democrats into a catch 22 of their own making. After railing about the lack of bipartisan cooperation, and whining about what was wrong rather than setting forth an agenda they think is right, the Democrats have only two choices: to behave as the winning party usually does and run roughshod over the others for as long as they can get away with it, or to play the cooperation game.

If they use their political currency to play hardball while they have the momentum and the public weal behind them, they will be called partisan and arrogant. Notwithstanding that this is exactly what Bush has been doing for six years, despite losing the popular vote in his first "selection" and having the good fortune to draw John Kerry, who was perfectly capable of defeating himself, as his opponent in his second race. On the other hand, if the Democrats do genuinely try to cooperate they will most likely find themselves and their principles co-opted faster than you can say "appeaser".

Or maybe there is a third way, much as I hate that overused term.

Americans who campaigned on behalf of, wrote checks to, and cast votes for the winning Democrats need to remind the new Congressional majority that electing them wasn’t the goal. Getting then to do a better job of governing than the Republicans they ousted from power is the goal.

The Republican right brought a scorched earth philosophy to governing. To the extent the Democrats play the charade of cooperating with this president without extracting serious concessions from him beforehand, we will be back where we started all too soon, with a devastating war dragging on, increasing numbers of people lacking health insurance, a burgeoning deficit, and an economy that pleases no one. They will then most likely be swept out of office in 2008 as they were in 1994 on the heels of a similarly heady ascent to power in 1992. Only this time it will mean the loss of the White House yet again as well. That’s an enormous price to pay.

To the extent that the Democrats exhibit statespersonship and invite a respectable number of their adversaries to the policy table in a principled way while not caving in to the lowest common denominator or losing their moral center, they might just be able to reduce the cynicism that sours so many people on participating in the democratic process. Better yet, they might even be able to get a great deal of good done for the American people while solidifying their political base for winning the big prize in 2008.

© Gloria Feldt 2006

South Dakota Law New Chapter in Story of Childbearing Rights

The biggest news about the sweeping new South Dakota law that will ban all abortions except to save the woman's life—no exceptions to preserve her health or for rape or incest--is that it is not such big news, It is in fact a news story that has been repeated over and over for more than a generation. But this time the story might well be headed for a disastrously different ending.

The South Dakota abortion ban, which passed the state legislature Feb.22 and was signed by Governor Mike Rounds (R), will join over a dozen state bans already on the books. It’s a head-on challenge to Roe v Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

Most of the outright abortion bans predate Roe, or passed soon after it. None can be enforced now because Roe is federal precedent that applies to all states.

Roe galvanized those who oppose a woman's right to choose about childbearing, and their immediate post-Roe response was to seek sweeping abortion bans. But they lost most of those battles, some by ballot initiative, some by legislative action or inaction, most by court rulings. They learned from their defeats and began to seek incremental victories: eliminating Medicaid funding for abortions for poor women, requiring minors to get parental consent prior to obtaining an abortion, mandatory delays, and state-written “counseling” aimed at promoting childbirth over abortion.

Still, Roe’s central tenets of a right to privacy in making childbearing decisions--the same as those in Griswold v Connecticut in1965 that gave Americans the right to obtain birth control--and the primacy of protecting women’s health have stood the test of time--thus far.

According to Eve Gartner, senior litigator for Planned Parenthood Federation of America whose Minnesota/North Dakota/South Dakota affiliate is the only abortion provider in the state, the ban will be challenged even before it is slated to go into effect July 1. There is a strong likelihood of success in the lower federal court. So far, this is a familiar story.

Three distinct differences today: the Court, the role of Congress, and the right's agenda

What’s most different now is the Supreme Court.

Roe was decided 7-2. The most recent rulings on abortion have been 5-4, with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor casting the pivotal 5th vote and often the person who cobbled together that razor-slim majority within a sharply divided Court. In between came numerous rulings that so pushed back the protections of Roe that some believe Roe is already a fragile shell.

The Republican right’s endgame of capturing the Supreme Court was won when Samuel Alito took the seat vacated by O’Connor. Alito authored the incremental strategy of overturning Roe restriction by restriction when he was an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice during the Reagan administration.

Now Alito will be the pivotal vote on those very cases when they come before the Court. The South Dakota law could be the one that finally fells Roe after years of chipping away at it. Already, the Alito Court has agreed to hear a challenge to the federal abortion ban, giving it one more opportunity to roll back Roe and prepare the way for its demise. And an anonymous donor has offered to $1,000,000 to fund South Dakota’s legal challenge to Roe.

South Dakota is just one of the 30 states which “What if Roe Fell”, an analysis published in September, 2004, by the pro-choice Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) predicts would either reinstate their old laws banning abortion or move swiftly to pass new bans if Roe were overturned.

But state-by-state analysis might become moot. Another big difference from the pre-Roe era is that Congress is in the act now, passing federal laws restricting abortion in various ways but applying in all states. And Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) has already said he will move to make it a crime to cross state lines for an abortion if it is illegal in your state, in the event Roe is overturned.

Finally, with the FDA dragging its heels on approving over-the-counter sales of the morning after contraceptive called Plan B, half a billion dollars a year spent on abstinence-only sex education programs while family planning services are underfunded and gagged, and a growing number of pharmacists refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, it is increasingly clear that much more than abortion is at risk. Overturning Roe would pull the thread that unravels the entire fabric of reproductive justice that began even before the Griswold birth control decision. That includes the right to privacy, the right to make our own childbearing decisions—to bear or beget, to use birth control or not, to have access to medically accurate sexual health information and services that are informed by science and not ideology.

The saga continues

But even then the end of this story will not have been written. The new South Dakota law could become a wake-up call to that 66 % of Americans who consistently say Roe v Wade should remain the law of the land. Most agree with Planned Parenthood’s Gartner when she says, “It would be a devastating day for women if they are no longer able to make intimate, personal decisions on their own.”

If Roe is overturned, there could be a pro-choice backlash equal to the anti-choice backlash after Roe. The midterm elections in 2006 and the presidential election in 2008 bring could bring about yet another twist to the plot of this seemingly unending story.

©Gloria Feldt 2006 gloriafeldt04@aol.com 9177155107 www.gloriafeldt.com
Gloria Feldt is the author of The War on Choice: the right-wing attack on women’s rights and how to fight back, and was president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 2006-2005.

Originally Published on www.womensmediacenter.com

Bang Those Pots and Keep This Movement Moving

Today is March 8, International Women's Day 2006. But before getting into that, let's think back to September 1995.

Spin the globe and stop the world on China.
It's the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, where hugely ambitious and thrilling goals were set for improving the lives of women, and by extension their families and the world.

The official conference was in Beijing, but the much larger convocation of activists from nongovernmental organizations was literally stuck in the mud in Huairu, a suburb an hour's drive from the city.

Thousands of us had arrived early on the morning of Sept. 6, to stand packed together under a roof of brightly colored umbrellas, jockeying for the few hundred seats inside the auditorium where then first lady of the United States Hillary Clinton was slated to give a speech.

I was fortunate not only to get inside but to get a seat. The program was running late; Hillary was running even later and the crowd was getting restive. Just as it seemed a revolt might be brewing, Shirley May Springer Stanton, the cultural coordinator of the conference, walked onto the stage and began to sing a capella, ever so softly: "Gonna keep on moving forward. Never turning back, never turning back."

Then she asked the audience to join her. Pretty soon the house was rocking. By the time the first lady arrived and gave her brilliant "human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights" speech, it truly felt like the global movement for women's rights was unstoppable. It was, you might say, an ovular moment.

Other Countries Take the Lead

Here in the United States, that moment can seem long ago when we consider our administration's federal budget and see how it slashes funding for international family planning services that could reduce the millions of unsafe abortions and risky pregnancies that cause 500,000 unnecessary deaths each year globally.

But the U.S. women's movement can take inspiration from working in sisterhood with women from around the globe. While the United States fails to meet its commitments to the global public-health community, many developing countries are funding these essential women's health services beyond all expectations and the European nations step in to fill much of the void left by America's abdication of leadership.

Women's development projects are also fueling economic growth around the world while bringing greater equality to the women in their societies. Sex trafficking and other acts of violence against women, long merely routine facts of life for women, are becoming subjects of international media attention and human rights action. And female heads of state are being elected in Europe, Africa and Latin America this year.

No movement for social justice moves forward without struggle, nor does forward movement necessarily go in a straight line. Yet, the movement for women's liberation in the U.S. seems to be the only one about which it can be said with impunity, "Enough now, we must go backward."

In her 2004 book "The Boundaries of Her Body: The Troubling History of Women's Rights in America," author and lawyer Debran Rowland delineates in crushing detail "cycles of advances and digressions characterizing women's rights in America."

Throughout these cycles, the rhetoric of opposition to the women's movement has been consistently pejorative. "Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote," President Grover Cleveland said, arguing against the suffrage movement prior to 1920.

Vilifying the Movement

Today, televangelist and political power broker Rev. Pat Robertson calls feminism a "socialist, anti-family, political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."

In the pressure cooker of such vilification and political retribution, U.S. women's rights activists sometimes succumb to squabbling about strategy. Instead of pushing ahead with passionate commitment, we debate the merits of retreat, reframing and retrenchment.

A prime example: John Kerry failed to articulate his own passionate commitment to women's rights during the 2004 presidential campaign. After his defeat, Sen. Hillary Clinton--the inspirational speaker at the Beijing meeting--chided New York reproductive health care providers, telling the very people who invented prevention--to change their agenda to prevention.

"The best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place."

(Well, yes, Hillary, that's why providers asked you to co-sponsor the Prevention First Act, which calls for increased funding for family planning services and access to emergency contraception that could prevent half of all abortions. You did and thanks for that, but now, how about giving the bill another big political push?)

Similarly, reproductive rights advocate Alex Sanger, in a Women's eNews article last month, charged feminists with having too narrow an agenda. To muster political clout in the next election, he said, we have to broaden our message to policies that affect entire families.

In truth the feminist movement--not the anti-feminists--has always advocated for the full panoply of just social policies from child care to pay equity and universal access to quality health care.

The Agenda is Not the Problem

The problem is not the feminist agenda. The problem is that all of us who support it need the political will, courage, commitment, stamina and a never-ending creation of inspiring initiatives that touch real people's lives. A movement, after all, has to move.

We who call ourselves feminists must remember, proudly, that we have changed the world, much for the better in terms of justice and equality. That's exactly what scares our adversaries so much.

A group of African women at the Beijing conference told a story about how they stamped out spousal abuse in their village. It bears repeating in this muffled era for women's rights activism.

The women said they banded together, took their cooking pots and took up positions outside of the homes of men who had committed violent acts against their wives. They banged on those pots so loudly that the whole neighborhood came out and took note of them and the men agreed to change their behavior.

Each country today has different reasons to bang their pots on this International Women's Day 2006. But the refrain for all of us who aspire to global justice for women is the same.

"Gonna raise our voices boldly, Never turning back. Gotta keep on moving forward, Never turning back, Never turning back."

So the Hammer Finally Nailed Himself

So the Hammer finally nailed himself.

I am so disappointed. It would have been much more fun to defeat Tom DeLay fair and square at the ballot box in November.

I was prepared to walk door-to-door in the district (my son, daughter-in-law, and two grandsons who deserve better representation live there). A stunning election defeat for Tom DeLay would show other zealous right-wing politicians that the majority of Americans--when you can get their attention away from trying to make a living and taking care of their families--really are in favor of basic democratic principles and--dare I say--ethical government. They really do believe in liberty and justice for all, in freedom of religion and speech, and in respecting the fundamental rights of others. They want to live and let live, not by the hammer but by common decency and fairness. Many of them were outraged when he violated the medical privacy of Terry Schiavo’s family who were faced with heartrending decisions. Others were shocked by his probable brush with corruption in his dealings with lobbyists. Everyone should be furious about how his long arm reached from Congress into the state redistricting process and defeated those with whom he disagreed, not at the ballot box but in the backrooms.

DeLay fell prey to his own arrogant quest for power over others when he should have been focusing on how he could use his position of public trust to improve the lives of the people he supposedly served. You have to admire and learn from his vision and tenaciousness, while reviling his raw use of power in the service of avarice, personal aggrandizement, and fundamentalist screed.

So another corrupt politician bites the dust. But now, while we do have the voters' attention, let's all take all this little civics lesson to heart. Politics is only a crooked and cynical game when we let the crooks and cynics hold the keys to the halls of government.

Go to your next precinct meeting, people. Practice democracy 101. Get registered to vote if you're not already. Vote every time and take your friends and family with you. Go to town halls to meet candidates and elected officials in person. Scour politician's websites and ask them questions. Check their voting records. Organize voters who share your values to get a meeting with candidates prior to elections when they are most likely to spend the time with you and keep in touch after their elections so they know they are accountable. And yes, write a check now and then to candidates you support. It does take money and lots of it to run a campaign. In today’s media-saturated world, candidates have to be able to get their message out to voters. We want to make it possible for people who aren’t rich or simply power mad to run for office. And hold the media accountable too, for representing the candidates and the issues accurately.

When we as citizens fail to do these things, we're the ones who get hammered. That's just the way it is in a democracy, like it or not.

© Gloria Feldt 2006
www.gloriafeldt.com

Newsletter: April 6, 2006

“I was ahead in the slalom. But in the second run, everyone fell on a dangerous spot. I was beaten by a woman who got up faster than I did. I learned that people fall down, winners get up and Gold Medal winners just get up faster.” ~Bonnie St. John

(*see story below)

DANGLY EARRINGS

Thank all of you who have sent me dangly earring stories. Please keep sending them to Gloria@gloriafeldt.com. In case you missed the metaphor, I revealed in a previous newsletter that one of my declarations of independence a year ago was to get my ears pierced for the first time in my life so I can wear beautiful dangly earrings. Many readers responded with their own stories. I’m going to share some stories with you, starting with this one from David Nova:

I don't have any dangling earring stories for you, but I do have an excerpt from a speech I gave for AAUW regarding violence against women. The speech began with the following:
When I was a junior at Vassar College, a student was raped on the campus grounds. A few days later …(click for more)

No Temple in Temple

I am very excited about my next two speeches (see column on right) because I get to talk about something near and dear to my heart. I will tell my personal story of growing up, yes, in Temple TX, where there was no temple, and later farther west in the "Last Picture Show"-like town of Stamford TX.

My sometimes painful and sometimes funny experiences as one of a small minority and sometimes the only Jewish family in town, was the impetus for my commitment to social justice and led me to my life's work for civil rights, including women's reproductive rights.

My desire to be an all-American girl (just like everybody else I knew) coupled with a minimally observant family life led me away from Judaism at first. But when my children were told by neighbors that they had black hearts because they hadn't been saved, I studied world religions, decided to embrace my own Jewish religion, became active in the small synagogue serving a 100-mile radius in West Texas, and began to truly value the source of my passion for repairing the world, Tikkun Olam.

There’s a new blog in town. Check out www.ILFpost.org

Upcoming speeches

Special Conference Guest Speaker. “Civil Rights/Women’s Rights”

Hadassah Southern Region Spring Conference

April 23, Chattanooga TN

Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel (can you believe that?)

Keynote speaker: “There was No Temple in Temple: What Growing up Jewish in Small-Town Texas Taught Me About Leadership and Tikkun Olam”

Jewish Federation of Valley Alliance. Followed by book signing.

El Caballero Country Club

April 28, Tarzana CA

Bang Those Pots and Keep This Movement Moving
On International Women's Day, Gloria Feldt looks back to a recent high-tide of activism at the Beijing global conference on women just over 10 years ago. Now more than ever, she says, we need to tap that same spirit of conviction.

Click here to read my commentary on Women’s e-News

The Battle to Ban Birth Control
Click here to read a great

salon.com article exposing the attacks on birth control

*Bonnie St. John was the overall second fastest woman skier in the world on one leg in 1984 and the first African-American to win Olympic medals in skiing.

The quote at the top of this newsletter will be featured on Starbucks cups this fall. For more information click here.

Gloria on the O'Reilly Factor

Click to Play

8 minutes 20 seconds.

Newsletter: June 1, 2006

June 2006

"The simplest explanation of any phenomenon is nine times out of ten truer than a really fancy one."--Occam's Razor, or The Law of Parsimony


An occasional newsletter from Gloria Feldt, May 8, 2006 www.gloriafeldt.com, gloria@gloriafeldt.com

So this month, I'll keep it as simple as Occam's Razor because I'm really busy, but I want to tell you about some highlights.

My New Book (or how I'm going to spend my summer vacation)
I am very excited to tell you that Kathleen Turner and I are writing a book about her life lessons, to be published in September, 2007, by Springboard (Time Warner Book Group's imprint that targets baby boomers). The book is tentatively named Take the Lead, Lady! We love the title because it came from a moment when we were shuttling around town from publisher's office to publisher's office to pitch the book. At one point, Kathleen, my agent Karen Gantz Zahler, and I tumbled out of an elevator, clueless about which way to turn to find the office where out next appointment was to be. Kathleen boomed, in her most imperiously Kathleen voice, "Take the lead, Lady!". It's going to be a very fun, smart, interesting book with lots of dish. I can't wait to be able to tell you more. And if you want to find me this summer, I'll be glued to my computer.

Other book news
What an honor to be included among outstanding women in Willa Shalit's recently released book, Becoming Myself: Reflections on Growing Up Female. I'm page 77, between Susan Stamberg and Patti LaBelle. Proceeds from this book go to four wonderful organizations that work to better women's and girls' lives. It's a delightful, inspiring Mother's Day gift. Click here for more information.

And speaking of books, I recently attended a swishy party for Joe Klein and his new book....(Read on, my latest political commentary on the blog ILFPost.org. )


The "War on Contraception" is finally recognized by the New York Times!


O'Reilly has a thing about hardhats
To read a transcript of my recent interview on the O'Reilly Factor regarding an excellent ad campaign by Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, Click here.


Dangly Earring story of the month from Patricia Ireland, labor lawyer and past president of NOW:
Hi Gloria--
How great to know where you are and what you're doing!

To celebrate being sixty I got a beautiful new tattoo on my back. It's an absolutely gorgeous phoenix, and it joins a dragon that I got in my fifties. Having colorful tattoos on my back pleases me. They are my secret and my absolute claim to my own body. Together the dragon & phoenix are a male-female symbol in Chinese iconography.To me they represent an expression of my individuality, creativity, and a little touch of fantasy.

Hope you're enjoying your dangly earrings!

Best to you,


Patricia

EC for EW (Emergency Contraception for Every Woman Who Needs It When She Needs It)

Note: given the news about the FDA’s current proposal to allow plan B Emergency Contraception (EC) to be sold over the counter—BUT with requirements that women under age 18 must have a prescription and that pharmacists must keep all EC behind the counter thus making it more difficult for women of any age to access, I thought a brief reminder of what EC is and why it should be fully accessible to all who need it is in order.

Want to reduce abortions by half? Want to know who is keeping the means from American women?

The topic is emergency contraception—EC for short. You might have heard it called the morning after pill. It’s birth control—just basic birth control pills in a formulation that can prevent pregnancy from occurring if used within 120 hours after intercourse.

Research predicts that if it were readily accessible, well-advertised, and properly used, EC could prevent about half of all unintended pregnancies and abortions. Imagine!

The World Health Organization says it is completely safe for over-the-counter use, and 39 countries already make it available that way for women of all ages. It is supported by the American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Academy of Pediatrics, and a wide array of public health professionals. http://www.drkoop.com/ency/93/007014.html, http://www.arhp.org/healthcareproviders/resources/ecresources/ecotcfda.cfm

And no, making EC widely available doesn’t make women promiscuous. We actually have the brains to use it appropriately.

Nor do women use EC as a substitute for their regular methods of contraception. In fact, when they have EC in their medicine cabinets in advance of need, it seems to serve the same purpose as the proverbial string tied around your finger.

So if EC really could prevent many unintended pregnancies and abortions, what’s the debate? Why is there any debate? And why should we care?

The fact is, Emergency Contraception is a vital component to comprehensive health care for women—it is literally, a woman’s “plan B”—if the condom breaks, if a woman has been sexually assaulted, if she thinks her regular contraceptive didn’t work for whatever reason--and that should be personal.

But it has become a political fight in which the science and medicine are being trumped by the politics of an ideological battle. For a timeline of the long-running battle over EC, take a look at this: Over-the-Counter Insurgency.

Those opposed to EC are the same people who oppose both abortion and family planning in other venues based on narrow ideological and religious views they want to force upon all of us regardless of what the evidence shows. In Fact, FDA officials have testified that they were forced to place the politics over the known scientific facts and their own best judgment. http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=38921

An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine called it “A sad day for science at the FDA”, when FDA management bowed to political pressure…and continued to ignore the recommendations of its own scientific committees.

I think “sad’ is way too timid a word. It is an outrage.

Because, after all, mistakes happen. Condoms break. And not always during regular business hours. And women who have suffered the trauma of rape should not have to endure the second trauma of worrying that they might become pregnant.

One courageous and ethical woman, Dr. Susan Wood, resigned from her FDA position as director of its Women's Health Division in protest over its disregard of science regarding EC. Like Susan Wood, I think women deserve health care based on science, not politics, and they shouldn’t have to fight their government to get it.

So do Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA), rightly held up the confirmation of Andrew von Eschenbach to the post of FDA commissioner. Their stance has caused the FDA to make its latest tepid proposal. I say, Senators, hold tight until the FDA decides to actually make the approval with its current restrictions removed and an affirmation that the scientific evidence will prevail.

Since unfettered access to EC could prevent half of all unintended pregnancies and abortions, let's celebrate this incremental step forward for women's health while we continue to work toward what 39 other countries have already done: make EC available without prescription to all women of all ages. There is no medical reason not to.

The Bush administration has played retail politics with women's health for many years. Now they have been bested at their own game. Senators Patti Murray (D-WA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) held up confirmation of Dr, Andrew von Eschenbach's nomination to be FDA commissioner until he capitulated and replaced his shameful political-ideological policy with legitimate science.

It took politics to overcome politics and allow medical science to prevail on medical decisions. I hope the Democrats will grow some balls when they see that they really can play to win. And how about the fact that it took two women to demonstrate this fact?

© 2006 Gloria Feldt

Newsetter: February 24, 2006

“Well behaved women rarely make history”

~Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Honor Our Mothers by Celebrating Women’s History Month and

International Women’s Day on March 8.

Here’s a little background on Women’s History Month: In my youth and up until the 1970's, women's history was virtually nonexistent the public school curriculum or in public consciousness. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women first initiated a "Women's History Week" celebration in 1978. They chose the week of March 8 to make International Women's Day the focal point of the observance.

The response was so overwhelming across the country that by 1987, the entire month of March was designated as Women’s History Month by a bi-partisan Congressional resolution. That said, it is my observation that most history curricula still underreport women’s history and history made by women. Thus the annual celebrations are an opportunity to learn and to teach about this universally important topic.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court can be up to no good by agreeing to hear another abortion ban case, and South Dakota has passed a law making abortion illegal, it’s urgent to talk about the connection between women’s struggles for our most fundamental rights, including reproductive rights as an essential human right.

On February 22, I had the pleasure of delivering the keynote speech to the remarkable volunteers of the Peer Health Exchange at their annual volunteer conference. Peer Health

Exchange college students give generously of their time and talents to teach top notch comprehensive health education in public schools.

Click here to learn more about the Peer Health Exchange.

Here’s where I’ll be speaking this month -- Please Join Me.

­The Bradley University Public Lecture

“The Courts and Women Today: Special Interests or

Fundamental Human Rights?”

Wednesday, March 1, 2006, 7:30pm

Newmiller Lecture Hall, Bradley Hall, Bradley University

1501 West Bradley Avenue, Peoria, IL

Celebrate Women’s History Month at the Library

“Motherhood in Bondage / Motherhood in Freedom.”

Saturday, March 4, 2006, 2pm

Brooklyn Public Library, 2nd Floor Meeting Room, Central Library, 1 Grand Army Plaza, call 718-230-2100 for more information.

I’m especially excited to give this speech in Brooklyn, where the birth control movement began with the first clinic in 1916.

Click Here for more information.

NY Celebrates International Women’s Day with leading human rights advocates.

I am honored to be speaking with this distinguished panel: The Right Reverend Catherine S. Roskam, Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen, Charlotte Bunch, Noleen Heyzer, Bianca Jagger,

Dr. Speciosa Kazibwe, and Vivian Stromberg.

Wednesday, March 8, 7:30-9:30pm - St. Bart’s Church on Park Ave. at 50th

Click Here for more information.

Dangly Earrings

Of all the articles, photo, and words I have put into these newsletters over the past 6 months, my revelation that (finally at my tender age) I got my ears pierced so that I can wear beautiful dangly earrings has generated the most comments, from men as well as women.

This is not unrelated to the admonition about good behavior not making history. Any act that represents a break from the past creates energy, sometimes negative, more often positive. With this in mind, I want to ask you, dear readers, to share your equivalent of dangly earrings with me for a new column by that name. What have you done that is a meaningful departure from your past? Why did you do it? And what has been the result? I can’t wait to see your stories.

Newsletter: January 16, 2006

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Best wishes for the Brave New Year

New is good. What did you do new last year? I left a 30-year career of social movement

leadership to become a solo practitioner writing and speaking about my passions. I got my ears pierced so I can wear those beautiful dangly earrings.

What are you going to do new this year? I’m working on a fun new book about life lessons for women and have created a new speech to share leadership lessons I learned the hard way. I’m working out with a trainer who has made me physically stronger than ever. We’re going to need strength to counteract the rightward drift of the Supreme Court. (See commentary, right column).

As words of encouragement, I want to share with you sentiments that have been attributed to Abel Muzorewa, former prime minister of Zimbabwe, and that have guided me through many new years and challenges. Dr. King exemplified such inspiration:

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered

Love them anyway

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives

Do good anyway

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies

Succeed anyway

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow

Do good anyway

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable

Be honest and frank anyway

The biggest person with the biggest idea can be shot down by the smallest person with the smallest mind

Think big anyway

People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs

Fight for some underdogs anyway

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight

Build anyway

People need help, but may attack you if you help them

Help people anyway

Give the world the best you have and sometimes you’ll get kicked in the teeth

Give the world your best anyway

“Well behaved women rarely make history”

~Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

March is Women’s History Month. I’ll be speaking at Bradley University and the Brooklyn Public Library on the history and future of reproductive rights in a speech entitled “Motherhood in

Bondage / Motherhood in Freedom: The Choice is Yours.”

My Recent Commentary:

For Alito Hearing Theater, Get Your Playbill Here
Women's eNews - New York,NY,USA
Be careful about whose script you follow and offers a playbill for an interactive performance. …

High Court Case Takes Aim at Heart of Roe
Women's eNews - New York,NY,USA
Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood is nothing less than an attack at the heart of Roe v. Wade. ...

By the way, if you don’t already subscribe to Women’s e-News, you should. www.womensenews.org