AND NONE FOR NONSENSE, BYE

Unsafe Abortions On The Rise

thingsiluv:

by Jessica Pieklo January 20, 2012

Almost half of all abortions performed globally are done so without trained clinical assistance. That’s according to a new study by the World Health Organization.

Overall abortion rates have remained steady at 28 per 1,000 women a year. But the number of unsafe abortions rose significantly from 44% in 1995 to 49% in 2008. Unsafe abortion is one of the main contributors to maternal death and includes procedures outside hospitals, clinics and surgeries, or without qualified medical supervision.

Unsafe abortions are especially common in developing countries, particularly those countries with more restrictive abortion laws. In Africa, for example, 97% of the abortions performed are considered unsafe, compared to 95% in Latin America, 40% in Asia and 9% in Europe.

The WHO also found that countries with restrictive abortion laws did not have any corresponding decrease in the number of abortions performed. In fact, usually the opposite was true, proving yet again that criminalizing abortion does not end abortion, it just unnecessarily risks women’s lives.

Most disturbing from the report is the inescapable conclusion that the progress made during the 1990s in making abortions safer has not just stalled, it has reversed. Setting policy that stigmatizes women and criminalizes the need to end a pregnancy is nothing short of a complete failure of public health policy.

Family planning saves lives, especially in the developing world. Whether it is legal or illegal will will seek and obtain abortions because abortions are a fundamental component of women’s health care. It’s time we recognize it as such.

(via pixyled)

10 things you should know about International Women’s Rights.

feministblackboard:

confessionsofcunts:

1. One in three women die or are seriously injured as a result of gender-based violence. Violence against women results in more deaths among women ages 15 to 44 than the total number of women who die because of war, malaria, and cancer.

2. An estimated four million women and girls are bought and sold worldwide each year, either into marriage, prostitution or slavery.

3. One out of every six American women have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. An estimated 60 percent of all rapes are not reported to the police.

4. Approximately 96 million young women in developing countries still cannot read or write. Globally, girls account for 55 percent of children not in school.

5. Nearly 75 percent of those displaced by violent conflict are women. Displacement leaves women without access to health care, proper nutrition or education. Displaced women face a higher threat of gender-based terrorism and violence.

6. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda resulted in hundreds of thousands of violent sexual assaults, resulting in an estimated 250,000 women falling victim to HIV/AIDS. While many women awaiting treatment died, their perpetrators receive antiretroviral therapies in prison.

7. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that actually denies women the right to vote by law. In other parts of the world, where women are legally allowed to vote, many women still struggle to exercise their rights. For example, in Afghanistan, some women were denied the right to vote in 2009 because the country lacked the necessary amount of female staff members to provide enough polls for women.

8. With its rate of violence, sexual assault and inadequate health care, Afghanistan remains the most dangerous place in the world for women to live.

9. In 1974, Isabel Peron became the world’s first woman president, when she was elected President of Argentina. Around the world, 68 women have served as head of state in their country (not including monarchies). Currently, 38 women serve as head of government around the world. In 1997, Ireland became the first country to succeed power from one female president to another.

10. African nations have more women in parliament than most western nations. Rwanda ranks number one in world rankings for the highest representation of women at 49 percent. 

(via pixyled)

pixyled:

sanityscraps:

UN Recommends Everyone Stop Telling Women What To Do With Their Bodies

daskannnichtsein:

mollydruwho:

The UN states that any country restricting a woman’s access to abortion and/or contraception is, in doing so, violating a woman’s human rights.

….finally.

So, we’ve got extremely reputable cancer-related organizations saying abortion doesn’t cause cancer or increase your risk.

We’ve got extremely reputable reports declaring post-abortion depression to be a hoax.

We’ve got extremely reputable reports showing how many women die from lack of safe, legal abortions.

And now we have the UN stating that ANY and ALL restrictions to the right to choose, to have knowledge, and to have contraception is a violation of human rights.

Your move, Anti-Choicers. Try not to use slavery, the Holocaust, or the Bible.

Or pseudo-science.

I’m sure they’ll show us some pictures of late pregnancy miscarriages and then talk about how evil abortion is. Because that’s a valid argument.

Choosing Life: Thoughts on National Adoption Month (Abortion Gang)

prolongedeyecontact:

“Choose life” is a favorite slogan among those who, of course, focus only on the “life” part while ignoring the “choice.” For those women who do choose life, the vast majority are also choosing parenting. Yet, for those women who are pregnant but don’t want to parent, anti-choicers offer one seemingly simple solution: adoption.

But it’s not simple, not even close. Historically, adoption in the United States was built on stigma, shame, and frequently coercion. When faced with unplanned pregnancy, young women had no good options. Single, nonmarital motherhood was shamed to the point of invisibility – it virtually did not exist among White, middle-class women. Women who wanted to have and raise their children were ostracized from their families and communities, and were told their children would be taunted on the playground as a “bastard,” and were denied information about public services that might have helped them establish greater self-sufficiency and venture out on their own – a feat which would have been an anomaly, with or without children. Women could also choose to have an illegal abortion, if they knew where to find one and were willing to take a serious risk with their health and safety. And finally, there was adoption, which before Roe v. Wade was the most common response. (At least among White women; black women almost always raised their children. Single motherhood has a longer history of acceptance in Black communities, and there was no market for Black children, and thus no financial incentive for the adoption industry to reach out to Black women.)

Adoption before Roe v. Wade was predicated on emotional and financial coercion. I have interviewed many women who were funneled into maternity homes where they wished and begged for better options, where they were shamed and ridiculed by those purporting to “help” them, and where they were promised they would walk away after giving birth and soon forget about their child.

I spoke with these women nearly half a century after their adoptions, and they were still traumatized.

These abuses are anti-choice, and today’s adoptions have evolved from this anti-choice history. In some places, at some agencies, adoption has evolved far more than in others. But there are still many, many fundamental problems with the way the adoption industry is set up. (Please note that I am specifically discussing voluntary domestic adoption here – international adoption has further complications, and foster care adoptions are a whole different story. Because adoption is so complicated and good discussion of it requires such nuance, I’m limiting the scope of my discussion to be able to do it some amount of justice.)

So, what does pro-choice adoption look like?

1. Pro-choice adoption is not-for-profit. Yes, adoptions will always cost money – there are legal fees, medical fees (if the mother is uninsured), and travel costs that the agency, and consequently the adoptive parents, usually cover. And the level of post-adoption services that birth parents and adoptive parents deserve will require skilled professionals to administer them. This is not about making adoption inexpensive; it’s about removing any potential for profit-motive from the adoption system. (Yes, there are still for-profit agencies and private lawyers. How will this influence their ability to present young women with whom they’re working with all the available options?)

Read More

(via pixyled)

pixyled:

stfuprolife:

This is why I’m pro-choice

qu4ntumrush:

A biologist weighs in on the Mississippi “personhood bill”

Let me first state my opinion as a biologist. Human life does not “begin”, it is transmitted. Human personhood is not a biological concept: it is the state of being a human being for legal and moral purposes. Laws and morality need a clear line between “person” and “not a person”, biology does not care. We may need to pick a line, but that’s something *we* are doing, it is not dictated by “biological facts”.

Normally a large proportion, probably a majority, of human zygotes fail to implant or are miscarried. The proportion that die due to abortion is only a fraction of the total death rate you are contemplating.

Meanwhile, I know a Mississippian who may become a refugee if the Amendment passes. She takes birth control pills to keep from bleeding into anemia every month, and if BCPs become illegal or unavailable in Mississippi she’ll probably have to leave. How thoughtful and life-respecting of her fellow citizens.

Go science.

@Bolded

YES.

Fake “Clinic” Cons 17-Year-Old Girl

prolongedeyecontact:

An Indiana mother recently accompanied her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend to one of Indiana’s Planned Parenthood clinics, but they unwittingly walked into a so-called “crisis pregnancy center” run by an anti-abortion group, one that shared a parking lot with the real Planned Parenthood clinic and was designed expressly to lure Planned Parenthood patients and deceive them.

The group took down the girl’s confidential personal information and told her to come back for her appointment, which they said would be in their “other office” (the real Planned Parenthood office nearby). When she arrived for her appointment, not only did the Planned Parenthood staff have no record of her, but the police were there. The “crisis pregnancy center” had called them, claiming that a minor was being forced to have an abortion against her will.

The “crisis pregnancy center” staff then proceeded to wage a campaign of intimidation and harassment over the following days, showing up at the girl’s home and calling her father’s workplace. Planned Parenthood’s clinic director reports that the girl was “scared to death to leave her house.” They even went to her school and urged classmates to pressure her not to have an abortion.

The anti-choice movement is setting up these “crisis pregnancy centers” across the country. Some of them have neutral-sounding names and run ads that falsely promise the full range of reproductive health services, but they dispense anti-choice propaganda and intimidation instead. And according to a recent article in The New York Times, there are currently more of these centers in the U.S. than there are actual abortion providers. What’s more, these centers have received $60 million in government grants. They’re being funded by our tax dollars.

http://www.ppaction.org/ 
Planned Parenthood Action Fund, 24 April 2006

[Emphasis mine. Hear that folks? We are funding terrorists with our tax dollars. The fact that this is legal is absolutely mind-blowing. And when we dare complain, they cry about how they’re being persecuted and censored unfairly, and we’re infringing on their freedom of speech. No, just no. This should not be fucking allowed.]

ETA: Some people in the notes were wondering about the veracity of this story so I found the original source (the citation above was all that was given at the website I got this from). Here’s some more quotes from the original story:

We [Planned Parenthood] have obtained permission to share some of the remarks the patient and her family wrote soon after their encounter with the CPC.

“I have been getting phone calls [from the CPC volunteer] at home and on my cell phone, and they came to my work… saying ‘we will come get you and throw you in a car and take you to a place that is safe.’  I made my decision [to have an abortion].  Even though I had talked to [the CPC person] before, she has no right to be giving out information about me [and my family].  They need to quit harassing me and my family and loved ones.  They have come to my home banging on my door and non-stop calling me.  I have heard racial comments about my boyfriend [and me].  They keep yelling my name, my mother’s, and my boyfriend’s.  They have no right giving out my information, and they need to respect my and my boyfriend’s decision. … They are trying to trap me but this is my decision and no person has forced me and I would like them to stop harassing me, my family, my boyfriend, and my work.”

Her mother added:

“These people have given [our personal contact] information to someone at [my daughter’s] school.  Now it seems even the students know certain things and are giving my daughter and her boyfriend a hard time as well.  Also, the faculty has heard things, too.  These people [the CPC personnel] have been standing outside Planned Parenthood yelling obscenities at all who enter.  My daughter’s, her boyfriend’s, and my name have been yelled out for all to hear.”

ETA #2: You might also be interested in this post I did awhile ago on more recent investigations of CPCs and their deceptive tactics.

(via pixyled)