This shouldn't be difficult for Australians, according to White Ribbon Chairman Andrew O'Keefe: "Today we are challenging all men to swear, and let's face it swearing comes naturally to most Aussie men." •  According to police, Kevin M. Derks, 53, turned his Wisconsin home into a shrine to child porn. He covered "every flat surface" with pictures of young celebrities and computer printouts of young girls in various states of undress or being otherwise molested. He claims he turned to children after realizing that the world has gotten "worse and worse." •  The Federal government has issued a recall for more than 2 million cribs, following reports that four babies had suffocated in them. They say the crib has a detachable side which can break, and allow the child to become trapped in a space between the crib and the mattress. • An Alabama district attorney says he is considering charging a 14-year-old girl for arranging the rape of her classmate. The girl told reporters that she and her classmate had planned on having sex with three older teens, but the victim said no when the other boys joined in. • Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio recently forced a pregnant woman to give birth while cuffed at the wrists and ankles. The woman was transported to a medical center, where she gave birth in "forensic restraint." She was also not allowed to hold her child, or see her for 72 days. Arpaio claimed he "had no choice." • According to plastic surgeons, Venezuelans are so dedicated to looking good that many people are dipping into their savings or taking on debt to pay for the costly procedures. "The financial crisis has spurred people to spend more on themselves ... to console themselves in this crisis. I have not seen demand diminishing," said one doctor. • In efforts to combat reports of anti-choice centers manipulating pregnant woman, the Baltimore City Council is considering legislation that will require pregnancy centers to post signs if they do not offer abortions or birth control referrals. • 

You see, in Palin's eyes, anyone who supports a woman's right to choose apparently might have "the mind-set" that allows them to pull the plug on Grandma or force women to terminate pregnancies if the baby is not, in Palin's words "normal or perfect." It is, of course, another attempt on Palin's behalf to scare the shit out of people with her "death panel" nonsense, and her attempt to step it up a notch by tying in her stance on abortion rights (or, rather, lack thereof) just makes things more repulsive. "In order to save government money, government health care has to be rationed," Palin told the crowd, "[so] than this elderly person that perhaps could be seen as costing taxpayers to pay for a non-productive life? Do you think our elderly will be first in line for limited health care?"

Palin also took the time to drop this laughable statement: "It is so bogus that society is sending a message right now and has been for probably the last 40 years that a woman isn't strong enough or smart enough to be able to pursue an education, a career and her rights and still let her baby live." You know what else is bogus? That Sarah Palin continues to position herself as a savior of women's rights when her entire platform essentially rests on taking them away.

Palin Rallies Thousands Of Abortion Supporters [Politico]

The evening seemed to focus on how we talk about feminism, perhaps because it's what all three panelists (that's not them in the pic) do in their jobs, but also because issues of language and rhetoric are a really important part of being a feminist in the larger world. The conversation touched on blog comments — which all three agreed were like a more public version of 1970s consciousness-raising groups — before zeroing in on the word "feminist" itself. Valenti said she embraced the word, and that there was no point in picking another, less loaded term because "I think any word you use to talk about women's rights is going to become a dirty word." Feldt concurred: "the first thing people do to you when they want to diminish you is they diminish you with language."

Unfortunately, the panelists seemed to feel that a successful diminution had occurred in the linguistic fight between words "pro-choice" and "pro-life." Harris said she had stopped using the term "pro-choice" in writing because "we lost that rhetorical war" — because anti-abortion advocates had successfully cast "life" as representing the moral high ground, and "choice" as somehow frivolous. I get what she was saying — I, in fact, stopped using "pro-life" in writing a while ago, in response to a consciousness-raising comment on this blog, no less. But I still use "pro-choice," because even though the opposition tries to frame the term as superficial — like choosing between different flavors of gum — I think it still stands powerfully for a woman's right to self-determination and autonomy. And I think that any substitute term — Harris mentioned "pro-abortion rights" and "pro-reproductive rights" — will be demonized just as "pro-choice" has been. To paraphrase Valenti, any word you use to talk about a woman's control over her own body is going to become, for some people, a dirty word.

In some ways, the highlight of the evening for me was when a college student asked how she could explain her views to her non-feminist friends without "coming off as a caricature of myself." I'm a lot older than her, and this is something I still struggle with. It's also something I feel a little bit guilty about — now that I'm a professional feminist, maybe I shouldn't be worrying about how I come off. But Valenti took her question seriously, saying it was actually one she was asked all the time. She told the young woman that "pop culture is a great entry point for these conversations," and she's right — as a shared language, movies and TV and even gossip can be a way not only for feminists to start a conversation with not-yet-feminists, but for young people still experimenting with feminism to hone their views. When I first started blogging, I wrote a lot about Kate Moss and the Olsen twins, and although most of what I wrote looks sophomoric now (and sometimes, unfortunately, mean), it was a way for me to get comfortable having opinions and making them public. I still don't like making a harsh distinction between "fluffy" and "serious" subjects, and I think Valenti's right that an ostensibly superficial conversation about some celebrity or movie can actually lead into a real discussion of values.

Harris, too, had a suggestion for the student — "be yourself." She apologized for the cheesiness of her tip, but she had a good point — teaching your friends about feminism can be as much about modeling behavior as it is about explicitly explaining your political views. Just by admitting that you're mad when you're mad, and not saying you agree when you don't, and refusing to body-snark on yourself and other women, and generally standing up for what you know is right, whether it involves women or not, you can show everyone you know that (to quote a T-shirt Valenti name-checks in Full Frontal Feminism) "this is what a feminist looks like" — and you'll make feminism look pretty good. In fact, even though I still have it from time to time, I do think the worry about looking like "a caricature" comes from feminism's enemies, from people who think a woman criticizing anything is cartoonish and shrill. For these people, just as "feminism" and "pro-choice" are dirty words, speaking up may be a dirty act, no matter how you do it. But for, I hope, a larger number of people, women and men, speaking up is just something they aren't familiar with yet, something they haven't quite learned to do. I hope the college student who so handily voiced my worries last night keeps on showing them how.

Planned Parenthood NYC Action Fund [Official Site]

• Australian researcher Maggie Hamilton interviewed thousands of parents and kids for her book What's Happening To Our Girls?. She found that the hypersexualization of kids has lead many youngsters to feel like they have to be, well, hypersexual. • But there is some good news out of Australia today: Australians are pretty pro-choice, says a new study. Only 4% of Australians oppose abortion outright, and 57% think abortions should be readily available for those who want them. •  According to a recent paper, cosmetic eyelid surgery actually improves quality of life. They asked patients who had undergone the procedure to fill out a retrospective questionnaire, the results of which indicated that cosmetic surgery may in fact improve the lives of those unhappy with their looks. •  A Canadian dominatrix and two other sex workers have asked Ontario's Superior Court of Justice to change Canada's prostitution laws, on the grounds that they are unconstitutional. Terri-Jean Bedford, 49, told the Toronto Star that she plans to bring her riding crop to court. "You never know when you might run across a naughty boy, or a naughty judge," she said. •  A study from the University of Copenhagen found that women who join a soccer league are more likely to stick to their workouts than those who run. The soccer plays also reaped more health benefits from their exercise, and tended to enjoy working out more. •  Sitting up straight may actually help improve your self esteem. Researchers found that people who are told to sit up at their desks are more likely to believe positive things about themselves than those who slump over. •  A pregnant aerobics instructor who was wounded when George Sodini fired at least 52 shots into her fitness club has sued the estate of the gunman, saying that the injuries she received that day put her in danger of having a miscarriage. •  Egyptian lawmakers have called for a ban on the Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit. The kit is manufactured in China, but they advertise that it ships to all countries in the Middle East. Conservative Egyptians fear that women will begin using them to trick their new husbands, and that it may make it easier for women to "give in to temptation." Some have even called for the exile of any woman caught ordering the kit. •  Burmese pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi was escorted into "surprise talks" with a junta leader on Saturday. Optimists think this may be the start of a new era of cooperation between Suu Kyi and the current government. • A woman from Florida was the victim of a raccoon "gang attack" at her Lakeland house. A group of five raccoons pounced on the woman after she tried to shoo them away. Fortunately, she is in recovery and will be fine. •  The Supreme Court has decided to refuse the request of the Connecticut Diocese and keep court documents on the sexual abuse committed by clergy members unsealed. • South Africa's African National Congress says that since Caster Semenya was raised as a girl, she should "continue to run as a woman." • Harriet the Spy will become a live-action TV movie on the Disney Channel. • Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, an authorized sequel to A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh books, came out today. The book features a new character, a pearl-wearing otter, and the author says, "I made Eeyore a little more proactive so he wasn't always the victim." • Scientists have discovered a damaged gene that is linked to half of all breast cancers. Damaged NRG1s have been found in 50% of all breast cancer patients, and it has also been linked to ovarian and bladder cancers. Although everyone is born with an intact NRG1, many cancer patients have faulty NRG1s, which were damaged at some point during their lives, but doctors have yet to pinpoint how. • 

Image via Yahoo TV

In a sublimely passive-aggressive piece on Andrew Sullivan's blog he writes,

Without taking any position on abortion itself, I want to interrogate the appropriate role of males, and suggest that progressives especially face some thorny questions. As I understand it, the most common position on the left is that how a woman deals with an unwanted pregnancy is a choice to be made by her alone. At the same time, the progressives I know subscribe to a partnership ideal in relationships, wherein major life decisions between couples are made via a process of mutually supportive dialogue, stripped of archaic gender norms whenever possible.

Oh, those progressives with their heads in the clouds! But what happens when their kooky ideas run up against harsh reality? This:

A societal norm that elevates the woman's choice above all else can certainly safeguard widespread access to abortions. But I suspect that the same norm inevitably leads some men to ask — wrongly in my view, but understandably — if you think that abortion is ethically unproblematic, and whether to have one or not is your choice, why should I have to pay child support for 18 years if you decide against having one?"

I've neither revealed my own views on abortion here, nor made an overall judgment about the social norms we ought to be inculcating. The narrow assertion I want to make is that the social norms we are inculcating are working to safeguard reproductive choices for women, and to undermine men's investment in pregnancies and child-rearing.

Transation: See ladies? If you insist on making your own decisions about abortion, that's fine, but don't expect a man to be around later on when you need help with pregnancy or child-rearing. Because men aren't going to be willing to have a "mutually supportive dialogue" with you unless they get a say in every single decision you make, including the one that has to do with your autonomy over your own body. It's all or nothing, girls! Oh and also, this isn't totally my opinion, it's just something other people might think, and it's up to you to decide, although I did just write an op-ed about it.

Patrick Appel, also guesting on Sullivan's blog, posts a variety of reader responses to Friedersdorf's piece, including this:

With some regret, the conclusion I reached was that whilst (of course) in the ideal liberal world you describe any decision like this should be taken by a couple together, enforcing any sort of formal role for a father would be both impractical and unwise. This is because any decision taken affecting the welfare of a fetus also affects the body of the mother. Anything medically done to the mother without her consent is an assault.

And this:

The final -choice- is hers alone, but that doesn't preclude dialogue, or even argument, tantrums, graphs, etc.

And this:

It's unfair, but heterosexual relations are unfair, and a man's responsibility should always be up front: "If you ever get pregnant, I will stand up and meet my responsibilities, period."

Yes, the decision of whether to continue a pregnancy affects the father too, and yes, in an ideal relationship, both partners would discuss the decision (ideally, before it ever becomes a decision — i.e. "what would happen if I got unintentionally pregnant?"). But Friedersdorf's threat that men might withdraw their support in other areas if we deny them a role in abortion reads a little like Lindsey Graham's complaint that Sonia Sotomayor gets to say things he can't say. Men got to make all the decisions, about relationships and everything else, for a very long time. Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that when they are locked out of just one — a choice that involves a woman's autonomy over her own body, no less — they get mad.

I don't believe that all anti-abortion advocates are acting in bad faith, or that they all want to control women. I do believe that many of them have genuine religious objections to abortion, and that these objections don't necessarily make them misogynists. But I also believe that on both sides of the debate are men who don't really get what it's like when something is not their decision to make. It's time for them to learn.

The Abortion Debate: What's The Role Of Men? [Daily Dish]
The Abortion Debate: What's The Role Of Men?, Ctd [Daily Dish]

Earlier: Dude Makes Abortion Party All About Dudes

Maggie decided to throw the party — an evening of dancing, drinks, and pastries, complete with a red sheet draped over a light to resemble a womb — to help pay for the procedure. Guests were asked to bring donations, and at the end of the party, "the donation bowl was overflowing." The event seems a little macabre, and it's unfortunate that the insurance situation in our country is such that a woman has to hit up all her friends to pay for an abortion, but nonetheless, the opening paragraphs of the article left me feeling kind of uplifted. Even many pro-choicers tend to treat abortion as something you're supposed to feel bad about for the rest of your life (Hillary Clinton famously called the procedure a "sad, even tragic choice to many, many women"). So it's nice to read about a woman who, once she's made the decision, doesn't beat herself up about it — instead, she actually does something fun. Then, unfortunately, things get weird.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the party isn't actually that fun for Maggie or her boyfriend. The boyfriend is uncomfortable because some of Maggie's friends think he shouldn't have any part in the decision to abort — or even accompany Maggie to the clinic. Maggie is sad because she and her boyfriend made the decision together, and she feels that her friends have "hijacked" her pregnancy. None of this conflict is too shocking, but Duncan's reaction kind of is. He writes,

I did, however, think the extent to which Maggie's friends were eager to vilify her partner was peculiar. These were liberal people, after all — people whose views on sex were worlds away from anything someone might consider "modest." I couldn't help but notice how aggressive and, for lack of a better term, 'male' their attitudes became when confronted with the issue of a woman's right to choose. It was almost as if, in the process of upholding an ideal of openness and acceptance, they had fallen victim to the same forces they were trying to critique.

Trust me, Duncan, there is a better term than 'male' to describe Maggie's friends. How about 'judgmental'? Duncan isn't doing his own gender any favors by associating it with closed-mindedness, but he's also not adding much to the abortion discussion by framing a complex conflict in stereotypical, gendered terms. His next paragraph doesn't help:

But could I blame them for responding with such anger? No way. I knew many of them had experienced the most hurtful forms of structural sexism — the kinds I will never see. The kinds that that disguise themselves as "the norm." These women, who had only recently begun to unravel the ways their voices had been excluded from relationships, dialogues and society in general, had every right to respond with anger. I imagine it would have been nearly impossible not to.

I get that Duncan is trying to understand here, that he is trying to think as a feminist, and he deserves credit for that. At the same time, he seems to be saying, "I think these women are being rigid and closed-minded, but they're probably that way because men are bad to them, so I'm going to forgive them." He tries to seem like he's seeing both sides, but he's not really looking for the rationale behind the women's views — he's just excusing what he sees as irrationality. And he's giving the patriarchy a lot of credit for dictating how women respond to issues. After the party, he writes,

As Ali [his girlfriend] and I walked home, we wondered together what exactly the relationship between abortion and "maleness" is supposed to look like. What is a man's role in the decision? Does including a male partner's perspective necessarily compromise a woman's agency, as Maggie's friends seemed to believe? It's not that much of a stretch — after all, male perspectives have suffocated debate around the issue for way too long.

Duncan has essentially taken a party that's all about a woman — there was a womb on the ceiling! — and made it all about "maleness." Rather than examining what it might mean to "celebrate" your abortion, what he really cares about is what abortion means for men. However, he is admirably open on this issue — he considers the possibility that a man's proper role in abortion may be no role at all. And his assertion that women behave badly because of a sexist society is one that pisses me off a lot less when women say it. Throughout the article, I found myself thinking that Duncan was trying to be feminist and not really getting it right — but I'm not sure what "right" feminism looks like, and I certainly don't expect it of all women. Duncan seems to me like he doesn't truly understand women's experiences — he's a prisoner of his gender. But maybe I'm also a prisoner of mine.

Image via Cake Wrecks

My First Abortion Party [AlterNet]

The last time O'Reilly sparred with a woman over Tiller, that woman was Salon's Joan Walsh, and he memorably told her she had blood on her hands. This time, Ann Coulter is blood-thirsty. Although her calling left-wingers "pro-death" (least mature reclaiming of language ever) is a highlight, the real nadir of the interview comes around minute 1:50, when she says of Tiller's assassination:

I don't really like to think of it as a murder. It was terminating Tiller in the 203rd trimester.

When O'Reilly argues that in fact it was a murder, and that murdering abortionists is actually a bad thing that should be punished (this the only time will actually take O'Reilly's side in an argument), Coulter says, "I am personally opposed to shooting abortionists, but I don't want to impose my moral values on others." She adds, "Their logic [meaning evil, blood-on-hands, "pro-death" leftist logic] says if you don't believe in abortion, don't get an abortion. If you don't believe in shooting abortionists, don't shoot an abortionist."

It's no surprise that Coulter makes no distinction between a fetus and a grown man with a family. Really, it should be no surprise when Ann Coulter says anything insane or inflammatory at this point. However, it doesn't seem very rhetorically effective to slam "pro-death" logic while excusing Tiller's death as a "termination." Isn't "termination" something good conservatives are supposed to abhor? It's supposed to be satire, we guess, but it might work better if Coulter seemed like she was ever compassionate toward anyone. Casting liberals as heartless just doesn't fly very far coming from her. Then again, maybe she's just there to make O'Reilly look good.

An equally strange part of the interview, though, happens just before minute one, when O'Reilly and Coulter agree that people on the right haven't been talking about Tiller's death enough. Coulter's explanation: "I'd like to think it's because they're hungover from the hurray-George-Tiller-is-dead party, but I think that's not it. I think people don't like talking to abortion." Leaving aside the "hurray-George-Tiller-is-dead party" (at which we're sure Coulter was the guest of honor), on what planet do conservatives not like talking about abortion? This one? This one? The one where Kansans for Life arrived at Tiller's clinic at 6:30 every morning to place over 150 crosses outside the fence? Or maybe the one where Operation Rescue just held a memorial service for the fetuses Tiller aborted, less than a month after his death? Whatever world Coulter and O'Reilly are describing, with its "pro-death" liberals and its sober, compassionate conservatives reluctantly discussing abortion, it doesn't resemble reality.

O'Reilly hosts Coulter to discuss the "reaction" of "the left-wing media" to "our reporting" on Tiller [Media Matters]
After Tiller: What Will Happen In Wichita? [NPR]

Earlier: Bill O'Reilly Shows Why "Abortion Reduction" Isn't Really Pro-Choice

Kissling starts out by saying that she feels doctors should refuse to perform abortions for reasons of sex-selection. She stops short of saying such abortions should be illegal, but she does say that pro-choice people need to consider the "morality" of abortion more than they currently do. She writes,

The thought of putting every woman through the indignity of meeting with an ethics committee, or getting a doctor to sign off on her reasons for abortion, has forced most of us to stick with the principle that women must be allowed to make their own private ethical decisions, without the state getting involved. But is it really leadership for us always to simply shrug and say: "Who knows whether that was an unethical decision for that woman?" Don't we express moral views about every other issue under the sun, from the number of embryos it is ethical to insert into a woman's uterus to the morality of bonuses for Wall St. executives who robbed us blind? Expressing our views about controversial issues is how society develops norms and shared values.

Her description of what those shared values might look like is the following:

I think it's important for us to be able to say: When a fetus reaches the point where it could survive outside the uterus, is healthy, and the woman is healthy, and she has had five months to make up her mind, we should say no to abortion. One can and should have compassion for the woman or girl who seeks to end a pregnancy at that late date, but absent severe fetal abnormality, a threat to her life or a clinical diagnosis of serious mental or physical health consequences of continuing the pregnancy, I believe we should say: "I am so sorry. You waited too long. I know this is a difficult decision for you to bear, but we cannot give you an abortion. I will help you any other way I can, but I cannot perform an abortion."

Again, Kissling refrains from bringing the law into it. Her words seem directed more at doctors than at lawmakers, more at the people in a position to personally refuse one abortion than at those with the power to prevent many. This may be due to Kissling's lingering ambivalence about the issue. She writes,

I still have a twinge of doubt when I write these words. For most of my years as an advocate of a woman's right to decide, I stepped back from this conclusion. I could not bring myself to say that there are circumstances in which I would force a woman to continue a pregnancy.

Now, however, she is comfortable writing a sentence like, "I have come to believe that women's autonomy does not require that all efforts be made to protect women from pain or from hearing the word 'no,'" and saying that, "President Obama was correct during the campaign when he said "mental distress" without clinical dimensions is not a justifiable reason for late-term abortion." She is comfortable using the fact that there are only two late-term abortion providers in the country as evidence that we should more severely limit late-term abortions, and the fact that Dr. Tiller sometimes refused patients as evidence that other doctors should. "What changed for me?" she asks. Her answer involves a fear of "a coarsening of our respect for both women and for life," but what really seems to have changed is Kissling's regard for a woman's own self-determination — and her understanding of what that self-determination means.

The right to choose isn't about being "protected from the pain of being told 'no.'" It's about having the right to decide whether or not you make your body home to another life. Kissling would call this "single value ethics," would argue that it ignores all the moral circumstances attendant on every abortion. And it does. Or rather, it places the responsibility for considering these moral circumstances on the mother, which is ultimately where it belongs.

It's not "coarse" or single-minded to say that the final choice about whether to have an abortion should rest with the woman, even if that choice displeases us. We aren't "simply shrugging and saying: "Who knows whether that was an unethical decision for that woman?" if we say that abortion is an ethical decision that woman have to make for themselves. Instead, we are giving them the power and the task of being the ones who determine if it is morally acceptable to end a pregnancy. It's not a comfortable power; it's not an easy task. It's not one that we, as a society, should wish to take upon ourselves. Instead, we should recognize that we're not protecting women or letting them off the hook by allowing them to choose whether to have an abortion. We're taking an often devastatingly difficult decision and setting it where it belongs: with them.

Can We Ever Say A Woman Can't Choose? [Salon]

The Huffington Post's Jason Linkins is correct that O'Reilly's most ludicrous moment came when he leveled a direct accusation at Walsh, saying, "My constitutional rights say I can say what I say, you can say what you say, as vile as you say it, you can say it, and I would never condemn you for saying it. You are misguided, you have blood on your hands because you portrayed this man as a hero." But he made a number of more insidious points. First (at around minute 1:30) he said that Tiller charged $6,000 per abortion and "became a millionaire doing it." Walsh argued with O'Reilly about his figures — and in her column about the show, she explained that Tiller sometimes waived his fee — but really the numbers are beside the point. We wouldn't expect an oncologist to work pro bono, so why would we expect Tiller not to charge for his — by all accounts difficult and complicated — services? Presumably because abortion is a special category of medical procedure, one so objectionable that doctors shouldn't have the right to get paid for it.

In the wake of Tiller's assassination, this stigma against abortion in the medical world is getting some well-deserved attention. Reuters reports that assaults on abortion clinics — there have been 67 in the first half of 2009 alone — may be keeping new doctors from entering the area. And in her excellent Salon piece on the "next generation of abortion providers," Kate Harding writes that although abortion is "the second most common outpatient procedure in the U.S.," a third of med students get no training in the procedure at all. She allows that, "given that many students won't pursue specialties that would involve providing abortions, and even those who go into family practice or obstetrics and gynecology might choose not to offer abortions, you could also argue that it's a waste of time in an already overburdened curriculum." But really, not offering abortion training may just perpetuate a vicious cycle, in which fewer students receive exposure to abortion issues and techniques, and fewer and fewer doctors choose to offer the procedure as a result. Excluding abortion from the medical school curriculum just encourages people to view it as less legitimate than other medical procedures, something doctors can get away with ignoring, and something they'd better do out of the goodness of their hearts if they do it at all. In an ideal world, everyone would have access to low-cost, comprehensive healthcare, including abortion — but even in that world, doctors should still get paid.

The second deeply upsetting point O'Reilly made has to do with why Tiller's clients sought abortions. He maintained that "Tiller was aborting late-term fetuses for casual reasons." He then called in Dr. Paul McHugh, head of the Psychiatric School at Johns Hopkins University (a title O'Reilly repeated several times, as though it qualified Dr. McHugh to pass judgment on women's choices), who made some vague claims about Tiller offering abortions so that women could "go to concerts" or "take part in sports." Walsh rightly disputed whether McHugh should be the one deciding what's best for women, but when O'Reilly pressured her on late-term abortion she said,"I believe that late-term abortion, under the current circumstances, to save the life of the mother, should be legal." She also said she's working for "abortion reduction."

It's become popular for liberals to say they're in favor of reducing the number of abortions, but this is an area where the left is letting the right define the terms of the debate. Frances Kissling in Salon explains how this has happened:

Recognizing that they probably won't succeed in making abortion illegal, the Democrats' faith-based allies decided that they could still use their moral disapproval to shape policy. They asserted that the number of abortions that takes place in America constitutes a moral tragedy and called for initiatives that would reduce the number of abortions. According to their mind-set, this was common ground, an abortion-neutral prescription for ending the culture war.

But "abortion reduction" is not an "abortion-neutral prescription." It's a prescription that assumes that some abortions are okay, but that some women and girls in America are getting abortions who should not be getting them, and that we need to put a stop to this. On the one hand, reliable birth control and sex education are obviously preferable to unwanted pregnancy, and most people who seek common ground would agree that improving access to these would be good for everybody. But there's a more disturbing corollary to the abortion reduction argument — the idea that some reasons for getting an abortion are better than others, and that it's acceptable to try to keep women from getting abortions for "casual reasons." This is what Ayelet Waldman found objectionable about the website A Heartbreaking Choice — the idea that some abortions are justified (in AHC's case, because of fetal abnormalities) while some are not.

If we start condemning abortions for reasons we deem casual, if we think of abortion as something that should only happen under conditions we deem appropriately dire, then we, like Dr. McHugh, place ourselves in judgment of women. If we truly want to preserve a woman's right to choose what to do with her body, we need to accept that sometimes women will abort for reasons we might not agree with. Really, being pro-choice doesn't mean thinking every abortion is a good idea. It means realizing that the only person who should truly have the right to determine whether it's a good idea is the mother, and protecting her rights means allowing her to make decisions we might not necessarily support. If "abortion reduction" means teaching people to protect themselves so they don't get pregnant in the first place, great. But if it means reducing the number of circumstances under which abortion is sanctioned — whether those circumstances include the life of the mother, the health of the fetus, or the duration of the pregnancy — then abortion reduction is really not a pro-choice position, because it takes the choice out of the hands of the mother, where, ultimately, it belongs.

Is there a next generation of abortion providers? [Salon]
How to talk about abortion [Salon]
O'Reilly Rages Against Joan Walsh Over Tiller Murder (VIDEO) [Huffington Post]
Threats, violence seen eroding U.S. abortion rights [Reuters]
Why I went on "The O'Reilly Factor" [Salon]

The entire 25-minute video, posted below, is worth watching; it's an incredibly powerful piece that shows just how brave these doctors have to be simply to provide a legal service to women on a daily basis. Along with Dr. Hern, the special also focuses on Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a colleague of Dr. Tiller's who gave the eulogy at Tiller's funeral and who, as Anna N. noted last Thursday, will be stepping in to fill Tiller's shoes.

This is not an easy piece to watch: the amount of hate that spews forth from a number of these anti-choice organizations, and the fact that they are allowed to continue with such behaviors, is, as Dr. Hern notes, incredibly terrifying and infuriating. However, the clip proves what we've known all along: that Dr. Hern and Dr. Carhart, as well as all of the other doctors, nurses, and clinic workers who risk their lives everyday simply to do their jobs are all amazing people, and their strength and dedication to providing a safe and legal option for women is a truly bright spot in an increasingly dark and frustrating chapter in American history.





Are Some Anti-Abortion Attacks Domestic Terrorism? [PBS]

Earlier: What's Next For Tiller's Clinic, Scott Roeder, And Abortion In Kansas?

Carhart, a longtime colleague of Tiller's who also performed abortions at Tiller's clinic, currently works in Nebraska but said he would start providing late-term abortions in Kansas. He declined to discuss the details of his plan, but he did say of late-term abortions, "if I have to train the staff and if I have to do them, then that's certainly an option."

Meanwhile, Operation Rescue's plan to buy Tiller's Wichita Clinic, which Tiller's lawyer Dan Monnat dismissed as a stunt, may be much more than that. Josh Harkinson of Mother Jones explains that the anti-choice organization previously bought a Wichita clinic — now its national headquarters — through a front group. That means, "if Tiller's family puts the building on the market, they might have to sell to someone they know or closely investigate the buyer to keep the building out of [Operation Rescue's] hands."

As Tiller's supporters wrestle with these concerns, others discuss who should bear the blame for Tiller's death, and what that blame should look like. Some are calling Scott Roeder a terrorist, and asking that he be charged with domestic terrorism. Joe Conason of Truthdig writes,

Although an overwhelming majority of abortion opponents bear no responsibility for the doctor's murder and should feel free to exercise their constitutional freedoms to the fullest extent, there is a violent fringe on the far right that has earned the designation of terrorist. And the federal government is responsible for ensuring our safety from those menacing forces.

According to feminist blogger Lindsay Beyerstein on the Huffington Post, however, Roeder is unlikely to face terrorism charges. She says,

That designation would unleash vast federal powers to investigate large swathes of the radical anti-choice movement and hold accountable anyone who gives them the slightest aid and comfort. The feds are simply not prepared for the political fallout that would ensue if, say, Operation Rescue were officially designated as a terrorist organization.

Although Gene Lyons in Salon calls Roeder "a classic Midwestern lone demento," he also cites some of the forces that egged him on. According to Lyons, Bill O'Reilly compared Tiller to Hitler, Stalin, and Osama bin Laden. He also said,

If I could get my hands on Tiller. Well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech. But despicable? Oh, my God. Oh, it doesn't get worse.

This kind of rhetoric didn't kill Tiller, but it certainly made it easier for someone like Roeder to actually become a vigilante, and to feel that powerful people in the antiabortion movement were at least tacitly on his side.

Dr. William Harrison, himself called "Dr. Satan" by antiabortion protesters, has a moving tribute to Dr. Tiller in the Arkansas Times. At its conclusion, he writes,

A common pious remark among many on the Religious Right whose activities incited the murder of Dr. George Tiller is, 'He sowed the wind and now he has reaped the whirlwind.'

Federal, state and local governments, in allowing the religious terrorists - as dangerous as those who kill in the name of Islam - to continue their attacks on Dr. George Tiller, his staff and his patients and their families for the past 22 years are the ones who have 'sown the wind.' Now, unless there is government action on all levels, many more of us will 'reap the whirlwind.'

Let's hope the government action Harrison calls for actually happens, so that no other doctors have to face Tiller's fate.

Neb. Doc Plans To Offer 3rd-Term Abortions In Kan. [AP, via Yahoo News]
Why Is Tiller's Alleged Killer Doing Press Conferences? [Salon]
Will George Tiller's Murder Be Charged As Terrorism? [Utne Reader]
The Story Behind Operation Rescue's Plans to Buy Tiller's Clinic [Mother Jones]
‘Dr. Satan, Come Out!' [Arkansas Times]
Domestic Terrorism By Any Standard [Truthdig]
Weekly Pulse: Will the Feds Dare Call it Terrorism? [Huffington Post]

The resolution would read, in part,

Whereas Dr. George Tiller was murdered in Wichita, Kansas, on May 31, 2009;

Whereas Dr. Tiller is mourned by his family, friends, congregation, community, and colleagues;

Whereas Dr. Tiller, 67, was killed in his place of worship, a place intended for peace and refuge that in a moment became a place for violence and murder;

[...] Whereas violence is deplorable, and never an acceptable avenue for expressing opposing viewpoints: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—

(1) offers its condolences to Dr. Tiller's family; and

(2) commits to the American principle that tolerance must always be superior to intolerance, and that violence is never an appropriate response to a difference in beliefs.

This resolution would help express the outrage many Americans are feeling against Tiller's assassination, but what it won't do is bring him or his clinic back. Katherine Spillar of Feminist Majority was relatively upbeat about the closing, saying,

It's what the extremist wing of the antiabortion movement wanted, but this is not a victory for them. [...] I think that you will see a regrouping and a determination on the part of the medical community in this country. In the meantime, we are working to ensure that all women in this country have access to the medical care they need.

Some believe that the absence of Tiller's clinic, and the circumstances of its closing, may actually hurt the anti-abortion movement. David Gittrich of Kansans for Life says, "This will change things in the pro-life movement, of course. They're not going to be able go out in front of Tiller's now." "But," he adds, "until abortion is illegal, unthinkable and unacceptable, there's going to be plenty of things for pro-lifers to do."

While much conservative response has been muted, a few have been more outspoken. A church marquee photographed by the Kansas City Star read, "George Tiller — he died the same way he lived." And in response to Tiller colleague LeRoy Carhart's assertion that Tiller's murder "is the equivalent of Martin Luther King being assassinated," John McCormack of The Weekly Standard wrote,

It looks like Carhart, one of the few abortionists in the country willing to dismember or poison to death healthy babies (oops, I mean "fetuses") of healthy women during the third-trimester, is doing his part to help mitigate the recent blowback against pro-lifers with this absurd comparison.

We can only hope that these extreme voices help worsen the disagreements that Mark Gietzen, president of the Kansas Coalition for Life, says already exist in the Kansas anti-abortion camp. But no matter how it affects the political climate, the people most immediately harmed by the clinic's closing are the women who were awaiting abortions there. California ob-gyn Pratima Gupta says,

You know, Dr. Tiller had patients that were scheduled for Monday morning. What happened to those patients for the rest of the week, the rest of the month? Those patients are the ones who need us.

There are only about ten late-term abortion providers in the country, some of them do not advertise, and women who need abortions very soon or have spent significant money to travel to Wichita may have trouble reaching them. For the sake of choice in America, we hope Spillar is right that others will step in to fill the void left by Tiller. But in the meantime, Scott Roeder has done violence not only to Tiller himself, but also to the women who needed him.

HR 505 Text [Library of Congress]
Slain Abortion Doctor George Tiller's Clinic To Close [LA Times]
Track Resolution 505 [Govtrack]

Related: Closed Clinic Leaves Abortion Protesters At A Loss [New York Times]
What's Next For Slain Abortion Doctor's Clinic? [NPR]
The Dangers Of Fundamentalism, Part 94 [The Atlantic]
Tiller's Killing "Equivalent of Martin Luther King Being Assassinated" [Weekly Standard]

Medical Students for Choice is based in Philadelphia, and has more than 10,000 members in the US and Canada. The group works "to destigmatize abortion provision among medical students and residents, and to persuade medical schools and residency programs to include abortion as a part of the reproductive health services curriculum." It's an important goal in a country where the number of abortion providers has declined by nearly half since the 1980s, and 90% of counties have no provider at all.

In her moving first-person piece, Rozalyn Farmer Love talks about her commitment to providing abortion as an option for women, and her family's opposition to that commitment. In college, she writes,

I sat in hospital rooms with young women who would look at me and say, "I can't be pregnant. I just couldn't carry his baby." I could feel their desperation.

At the same time, I found myself shocked at how little many of my friends — women who were studying biology and planning to become doctors — knew about their own sexual health. They didn't know about or couldn't get the reproductive health care they needed because of barriers put up by their culture, their religion and their parents, whose sole contribution to sex ed was generally an unspoken "Thou shalt not!" One friend begged me to help her concoct a legitimate-sounding excuse — painful or irregular periods, say — for why she needed to be on birth control. No one could know the real reason: She was sexually active and didn't want to get pregnant.

She doesn't talk to her parents about her pro-choice views, and, "at the start of medical school, I was very careful about how I presented my pro-choice views to the faculty for fear that I could jeopardize my grades or hurt my chances for recommendations or of being accepted into a program run by any of the professors." While she is afraid of "what seventh grade might be like for my children if I choose to provide abortions," she understands that abortion — even third-trimester abortion — is a right that must be safeguarded, and despite her conservative upbringing, she knows it is a moral decision to help safeguard it.

Shannon Connelly, a board member of Medical Students for Choice, says that, "for every anti-choice extremist, there are many people who would love to show their support for our cause." Love is one example. So are the 2,000 to 3,000 people who donated to Medical Students for Choice in the days following Tiller's murder. The group wants to use the funds to honor Tiller's memory "in a direct way," perhaps by providing scholarships so that more medical students can receive abortion training. It's tragic that Dr. Tiller is now a memory who must be honored, instead of a living inspiration, but supporters of choice everywhere can take heart that his legacy goes on.

My Choice [Washington Post]
Medical Students Fill Survivor Role for Dr. Tiller [Women's eNews]
Medical Students for Choice [Official Site]

Reading the site is an emotional experience: contributors hold up a sign reading "I Am Dr. Tiller" in order to cover their faces (for safety purposes, though a few contributors have chosen not to hide themselves) and tell a bit of their story, and why they continue their work, in spite of the threats and dangers from anti-choice individuals, in order to give readers a more human, honest view of what really takes place in clinics. As the site explains:

Here you will find stories of individuals who have dedicated their lives to making abortion safe, legal, healthy, and accessible to women and girls. These people may be nurses, counselors, escorts, volunteers at abortion funds, or abortion doctors themselves. You will not see the faces of these providers to protect their safety. What you will see is the story they decide to share - how they came to abortion work, what their function is at their abortion clinic, or their personal abortion story. We want to humanize these individuals to convey the kindness, courtesy, justice, love, and respect they have for women and the health care choices women make. We share our stories in hopes of ending clinic violence, to alleviate the shame associated with the abortion experience, and as an homage to Dr. Tiller's outstanding and courageous life work.

The shared stories are quite moving and inspiring, and a testament to the importance of Dr. Tiller's work and legacy. "I now have the opportunity to show those who would intimidate me into hiding, who would force me to abandon women and girls in need, that my conviction is stronger than theirs," writes one contributor, "I will not be ashamed. I will not be scared. And I will not ever forget the people who made these opportunities possible. I am Dr. Tiller." And we are forever grateful for it.

[I Am Dr. Tiller]

Workers at Tiller's clinic had seen Roeder supergluing its locks a total of four times, beginning in 2000, and reported these incidents to the FBI. The FACE act, signed into law by President Clinton, makes it a federal crime to vandalize an abortion clinic. Roeder could have been prosecuted under this law, but the FBI told a clinic worker that it was unwilling to start proceedings against Roeder because this would require a grand jury and a warrant.

Rowley agrees, perhaps surprisingly, that the supergluing wasn't enough for the FBI to pay attention to Roeder. But, she says, they should have taken action once they realized that Roeder had already been arrested in 1996 with bomb-making materials in his car and the intent to blow up an abortion clinic. With this information, they could have visited Roeder's home and warned him not to come back to Tiller's clinic. Mild as this move seems, it apparently worked in 2000, keeping Roeder away from the clinic for years. It might have saved Tiller's life.

TPMmuckraker adds,

There's also a larger story here, which involves what appears to be a sharp drop off, during the Bush years, in efforts to enforce the FACE Act and otherwise to ensure the safety of abortion providers. Could the general turn by law enforcement in recent years toward a focus on Islamic and environmental terrorism, and away from right-wing terrorism, have played a role in what looks like the FBI's casual response? And is it time to rethink that shift? It's certainly worth asking.

Meanwhile, Scott Roeder awaits his trial. The man whom eyewitnesses saw shoot Tiller, and who was seen vandalizing Tiller's clinic on four occasions, and who was caught in 1996 with explosives in his car, says, ""I haven't been convicted of anything, and I am being treated as a criminal." He also says "I appreciate your prayers."

One thing he doesn't have to pray for is being spared the death penalty. That's already off the table, because his crime doesn't include any of the seven special circumstances required for the death penalty under Kansas law. While it's hard to see why killing a man so many women in need depended on is less heinous than, say, a contract killing (one of the circumstances), we should think hard before we wish death on Roeder. One of the most upsetting inconsistencies in American politics is that those who trumpet the sanctity of life also often support the death penalty. Now is an important time to show that being pro-choice doesn't mean being pro-death, and that abortion rights are about the right of a woman to control her own body, not about a callous attitude toward human life. Just because you believe that a woman should be able to choose to terminate her fetus doesn't necessarily mean you also have to believe that the government should be able to kill a born, living human being.

FBI 9/11 Whistleblower: Bureau Dropped The Ball On Tiller Case [TPMmuckraker]
Abortion Doctor Slay Suspect Chides Media [CBS]
Why Kansas D.A. Can't Seek The Death Penalty In Tiller case [AP, via Miami Herald]
Before Tiller Murder, FBI Got Detailed Info On Roeder's Illegal Activity [TPMmuckraker]
Freedom Of Access To Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act [National Abortion Federation]

Earlier: Dr. George Tiller's Assassin, Scott Roeder, Speaks
Man Charged In Murder Had Ties To Anti-Abortion, Anti-Government Organizations

Most of the women who have shared their experiences online — even anonymously — are married, and sought late-term abortions because of fetal abnormalities. Though their decisions were heart-wrenching — these were planned, wanted pregnancies — their stories may be more socially acceptable because they don't fit the pro-life profile of thoughtless sluts seeking "abortion on demand." But Tiller treated unmarried women and girls too, with no less compassion. One woman, who terminated her pregnancy because of a rare fetal blood abnormality, remembers Tiller's commitment to all his patients:

My husband and I found Dr. George Tiller to be a caring, sensitive, and compassionate man who truly believed he was helping those of us who were desperate and had nowhere else to go. While we were at his clinic, he was very concerned about an 11-year-old child raped by her stepfather. And, when we were tormented by Operation Rescue protesters outside his clinic, he put on a bullet proof vest and personally drove us out of there while we hid in his van.

And a husband recalls:

I remember being puzzled about a T-shirt he was wearing, which said "Happy Birthday Jennifer from team Tiller!" or something similar. Turns out it comemmorated the birthday of a fifteen year old girl who was raped, became pregnant, and came to Tiller for an abortion. As luck would have it, she was in the clinic the same week as her birthday. So the clinic threw her a party.

A Heartbreaking Choice, a website for parents who terminate planned pregnancies due to fetal abnormalities, has a section called "Kansas Stories," dedicated to Tiller's Women's Health Services Clinic, one of only three in the nation that will perform abortions after 21 weeks. The stories don't mention Tiller by name, but they paint the clinic as a safe haven for women with few options, beset on all sides by critics. One woman writes,

I was 27 weeks by this point. I was terrified. The moment I met the doctor, all of that ended. He was a wonderful and loving man. I came in on Monday and gave birth to our baby girl on Friday. We were able to hold her after, and say our goodbyes. That doctor will always be in my heart.

Another says:

The reality is that abortion in the late second and third trimesters is extremely rare. The reality is that finding a doctor to do this procedure in the late second or third trimester is almost impossible. For me, the reality was that at the most painful time of my life I had to travel out of state, stay in a hotel room and face hostile protesters in order to carry out this most personal of choices. [...]

My only advice is don't let "them" define this for you. It is still your choice, your child and your life. I started to react as if the protesters were talking to me personally and indeed felt like everything they said was directed at me. In truth, they never see the real people behind the rhetoric.

A third adds:

The following morning the protestors were there again but this time with a twist. They had a huge group of kids with them. These middle- to high school-age kids were out there on the street corner hollering at us. These children didn't have the slightest understanding of what we were going through but they were taught they had the right to judge us.

A Kansas pro-lifer, writing to Andrew Sullivan, lays part of the blame for Tiller's death at the feet of such protesters:

This had been going on for years now. When these people said that Tiller's practices must be "brought to an end" or whatever, I truly believe that the vast, vast, vast majority of them (including the OR president, whom I've talked to about this before) do not have homicide on their minds. However, it doesn't matter. Operation Rescue or Bill O'Reilly do not qualify every statement about Tiller with a parenthetical stating "oh, by the way, killing him is not the way to stop him" for obvious reasons. But even if they did, they can't stop someone from thinking that more drastic measures are "necessary."

Pro-life advocates have the right to protest in front of abortion clinics, just as advocates for choice have the right to criticize them for making a difficult time all the more painful for women. But rhetoric that targets abortion providers themselves, rather than abortion as an issue, always runs the risk of inciting extremism and violence. After Tiller's death, Operation Rescue president Troy Newman said,

Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning.

His denunciation is commendable, but why the focus on "bringing Tiller to justice?" Why can't the debate over abortion concentrate on laws and courts, rather than on individuals who perform a service that is legal and considered by many to be morally acceptable? William Saletan at Slate says, "If unborn children are morally equal to born children, then Tiller's assassin has just succeeded where the legal system failed: He has stopped a mass murderer from killing again." He says that the fact that pro-life groups have denounced Tiller's murderer shows they don't truly equate unborn children with born children, or abortion with murder. But there's another argument here, one that says if you truly disagree with abortion, you should seek to remove the laws that allow it, not the people who operate according to those laws. If the death of George Tiller shows us anything, it's that if there must be a battle over abortion, that battle should be fought at the polls and in the courtrooms, not in doctor's offices — and the weapons should be words, not bullets.

Kansas Stories [A Heartbreaking Choice]
Patients Remember Dr. Tiller [Feministe]
It's So Personal: A Tiller Patient [Daily Dish]
Another Memory Of Visiting Dr. Tiller [Double X]
A Pro-Lifer From Kansas [The Daily Dish]
Kan. Abortion Doc Killed In Church; Suspect Held [AP, via Yahoo News]
Tiller's Killer [Slate]

The video was first screened for the Women's Medical Fund, an organization that "believes that without access to abortion services, the right to choose is meaningless," and aims to provide access to abortions for all women.

[Women's Medical Fund]

Earlier: George Tiller, Late-Term Abortion Provider, Shot & Killed At Church