Now you can imagine people’s initial reaction: complete shock. No one expects such a horrible thing to happen to somebody they might know. But after that, judgments flew. People called the girl a murderer, a baby killer. Then, of course, the situation exploded. The identity of the girl was released and the level of cruelty and bullying, especially on Facebook, reached a peak.

What struck me most about this situation was how quick my peers were to judge this girl. None of them stopped to think — really think — “what would I have done if that were me?” Really, what would you have done? Maybe you wouldn’t have acted the same way she did, but the bottom line is if you’re anything like me, then you can probably admit that you really have no idea what you would’ve done. Because that’s the thing: none of us know unless we are actually in that situation. And if we haven’t been in that situation, we can never fully know or understand what that girl went through. And because we don’t know and we don’t understand, we cannot judge her.

I think we can, however, judge society. We can judge an educational system that left this girl so in the dark she could not even recognize the basic signs of pregnancy. We can judge a system that failed to teach this girl about proper contraception, which could have prevented the entire situation. We can judge a society that left this girl so alone that she felt the need to hide this traumatic event from her family and friends. We can judge a society that would judge this girl. But I don’t think we can judge the girl – let alone bully her and treat her with cruelty – because none of us can truly, honestly understand what exactly happened and what she went through.

Like every other rational individual in our country, I was in a state of utter shock when I heard the news that, for the first time in history, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had overruled a fact-based decision by the FDA. While this type of nonsensical anti-choice maneuver is something pro-choicers have had to deal with in the past, the fact that it was carried out by a Democratic administration was nothing less than devastating. The administration ignored sound evidence (and women’s basic rights) and did what they are quickly becoming best known for, sacrificing “change we can believe in” for “never mind what’s right, I will shirk away from anything that could possibly be considered controversial and cost me a vote in my reelection campaign.”

And yes, it was abundantly clear to me within a few moments that this was nothing but a case of political posturing by Obama and his team of advisers. For many obvious reasons this was clearly not a case of Secretary Sebelius going rogue and determining, as a non-medical professional, that the scientists and researchers at the FDA, in their ten-plus years of evaluating over-the-counter use of emergency contraception, had somehow failed to adequately address the subject at hand in their research. Her flimsy response citing an issue that could have easily been addressed in say, the past 10 years (if it were an actual issue, which it is not), did nothing to convince me otherwise. Groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who are in a position to know a thing or two about the proper use of emergency contraception (because, unlike Sebelius, they are medical and public health experts who have addressed this issue daily since emergency contraception came into existence), happen to wholeheartedly agree with my conclusion.

In a particularly disheartening statement from one of the only four (yes, really) members of Congress who actually spoke up on the issue, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) managed to release this depressing gem of a proclamation, “I think the president has not been with us 100 percent, but I don’t think he’s thrown women totally under the bus.”

He hasn’t thrown women totally under the bus? This is now that the standard by which we judge the leader of the party that is supposed to protect women’s rights? Not throwing women’s rights totally under the bus?

This telling statement and the unacceptably small number of Democrats in Congress willing to criticize Obama’s blatant disregard for the health and rights of women should serve as a huge wake up call to us. We cannot let the Democrats, let our president, lose sight of what this decades-old debate about access to all forms of reproductive health care is really about; that is, for women to have any sort of autonomy and self-determination within our society. When you make this connection explicit, it renders all of their “compromises” with an unrelenting and regressive conservative party seem horribly unacceptable. In fact, that is precisely why the United Nations was advised to consider any such maneuvers a violation of women’s human rights.

The UN Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council, when tasked with submitting a report to the committee on the connection between reproductive health and human rights, asserted that legal restrictions on access to reproductive health services serve to systematically deprive women of full participation in society. It is clear why the Rapporteur came to this conclusion when we look back at our own nation’s history; it is no coincidence that it was only when women gained widespread access to oral contraception in the early 1970s that we were able, for the first time, to fully and sustainably participate in the public sphere (though patterns of working outside the home have always varied by race and by class, access to oral contraception was one of the primary shifts that allowed for all women to begin working outside the home). The simple truth of the matter is that if a woman is not able to safely opt out of or delay pregnancy, then it is nearly impossible for her to pursue things like education and work outside the home. If you need proof of this lesson from outside the broad strokes of history, feel free to ask any woman who has had a career outside of the home or managed to avoid an unintended pregnancy in college or high school, where she would be without access to contraception.

In his report, the Rapporteur goes on to note that:

Public morality cannot serve as a justification for enactment or enforcement of laws that may result in human rights violation, including those intended to regulate sexual and reproductive conduct and decision making. Although securing particular public health outcomes is a legitimate State aim, measures taken to achieve this must be both evidenced-based and proportionate… legal restrictions that reduce or deny access to family planning goods and services…such as emergency contraception, constitute a violation.

Enforcement of public morality around emergency contraception without any basis in evidence sounds eerily familiar doesn’t it? What did our President say again of his administration’s decision? I believe it was, ah yes:

And as I understand it, the reason Kathleen made this decision was she could not be confident that a 10-year-old or an 11-year-old, going to a drug store, should be able to, alongside bubble gum or batteries, purchase a powerful drug to stop a pregnancy… I think most parents would probably feel the same way.

Aside from the fact that Obama misrepresents how this drug works, it prevents pregnancy, it does not “stop a pregnancy,” others have appropriately commented on how a) this statement completely distorts the population the decision affected (aka ALL women and b) Obama’s words are incredibly insulting and paternalistic. However, what I am most interested in for the purposes of this analysis is how President Obama’s actions and words demonstrate a complete lack of understanding and/or callousness about something that was very clear to the UN Rapporteur and should be clear to a President who considers himself a student of history (I would hope he has read a book or two on U.S. history which included a few chapters on women). There is an inextricable link between women’s reproductive rights and our freedom and self-determination within a society, thus any President who restricts access to reproductive healthcare violates women’s human rights and certainly cannot claim to be pro-woman. Period.

Now the question is, where does that leave the pro-choice, pro-woman community who feels betrayed both by the actions of our President (and the line of thinking behind them) and by our party? Particularly when we hear more than whispers of another potential move to undermine our rights.

Quite frankly I do not have an answer. But I do know this: Obama’s political calculation in the Plan B scenario relied on the belief that no matter what he does, pro-choice women will rally, raise money, and vote for him in 2012 because there is just no better option. However, despite the fact that Obama thinks women are incapable of following directions for a one-step pill, we just might be smart enough to hold him and our party accountable, with our votes and with our voices, to the women who put them in office.

Originally posted on RH Reality Check.

what do you really know about the Pill?

When I was 17 years-old I was put on the birth control pill. I had painful, heavy periods that would get me out of gym class, but that wasn’t the only reason I was taken to the doctor. My mum, who became an adult in the 1960s, just as the Pill was introduced as a tool for female liberation, was afraid I would get pregnant. Not that I had a boyfriend, or even had sex – and, in fact, I wouldn’t for another four years. It was just the responsible thing to do, the right thing to do, and I swallowed that, quite literally, without question. I had no idea how the Pill worked, nor even how my own body worked. Aside from some embarrassing and misleading classes at my all-girls school in small town England — in which we were told all penises were the same length and acne was a result of not washing properly, for example — I only had the real-life story pages of magazines to aid my understanding. I continued to take the Pill, a number of different kinds, for the next ten years. I can’t say I knew much more at 27 than I did at 17.

I didn’t know, for example, that the Pill has a whole body impact, that every tablet has an effect on every organ in your body. Nor did I know that it switched off my hormone cycle, a cycle that played an important part in things like my attraction to particular men, my sense of smell, my ability to concentrate, my absorption of vitamins and my energy levels. I didn’t know that replacing my natural hormone cycle with synthetic estrogen and progesterone could lead to depression and anxiety. Even as I experienced these side effects I wasn’t aware they were caused by the Pill. That is, until I started to teach myself about how the Pill works, and how my own body works. Once I did know, I knew I had to come off the Pill for the good of my physical and mental health.

At the time, my depression and anxiety reached such levels that I thought I was losing my mind. I was taking a type of the Pill called Yaz. My decision was based on the little knowledge I had gleaned from their aggressive advertising campaign and the suggestion of my doctor who had come to consider it a new wonder drug, a cure-all. Yaz is currently under intense investigation, specifically its synthetic progesterone component drospirenone, which has been connected to an increased likelihood of producing blood clots.

Back when I was 17, it was the Pill or nothing as far as my parents, teachers and doctors were concerned. I was not told about alternatives. I was handed the Pill like it was a harmless piece of candy or a vitamin supplement and was told to take it for as long as I didn’t want to get pregnant. I believe that enforcing ignorance and casual prescription not only leads young women to suffer unnecessarily from the Pill’s side effects, as I did, but is also problematic on a greater level. I think failing to educate teens about the Pill when it’s prescribed leads to a far less effective form of contraception than is hoped.

If something is given to you casually like candy, then it will be taken as such – without thought or care. The general attitude behind giving teenage girls the Pill is that they should not know more than is absolutely necessary, that they can not be trusted to be responsible if armed with more knowledge and that they don’t know what’s good for them anyway. The main goal is to keep them from getting pregnant and nothing else matters. Today, this issue of trust is all the more important, as long-acting contraceptive methods such as the injection, the patch, the IUD and the implant are being pushed on young girls. These are just repackaged forms of the Pill with the added benefit that they will help women who forget to take a tablet every day. However, they cause their own health issues – the injection, for example, is also given in the same form to sex offenders to eliminate their sex drive.

Teaching young women about how their bodies work allows them to address their relationships with themselves and others with confidence. A young woman that is educated about the Pill is far less likely to become pregnant than one that is put on the Pill in ignorance. I believe that consent can only be procured with full knowledge and thus I think it is time to question our priorities as a society. We are saying that young women are incapable of understanding themselves, that their bodies are not their own and should be treated as dangerous and in need of constant control from the outside.

A young feminist today needs to question not only what feminists have questioned for decades, but also the beliefs of older feminists. While their intentions in promoting the Pill may be founded in a genuine care for our well-being and rights, they may not be going about it in the right way. Older feminists, like my mother, grew up in a time when the Pill served its purpose as an agent for social change – and it admittedly was an amazing thing for the feminist cause and women at large. But now we know more. Now we are more concerned about what we eat, wear and products we use to clean than ever, yet we are encouraging millions of otherwise-healthy women to take a powerful medication every day with proven unhealthy side effects, for years.

This Pill-mania has eroded the fundamentals of reproductive rights and women’s liberation – choice, freedom and education. And the only way to bring about change is to educate ourselves.

Holly writes about education about the Pill on her blog Sweetening the Pill

abortion in India: not everybody feels this way

As I was reading this post on “Abortion Doulas” I got to thinking about being pro-choice, abortion in general and about abortion in India in particular (as this is where I live). Out here, we tend to look at abortion as something shameful, disgusting, a thing to keep under wraps. No “good Indian” girl ever gets an abortion. If she does, people whisper about her in hushed tones for what she did was indeed disgusting. Interestingly, this is the attitude for abortion only for single women, unwed mothers etc. Within the sanctity of marriage, many women are forced to abort their unborn female fetuses. That isn’t entirely looked down upon. In fact, aborting the girl child is seen as the only solution.

Most T.V ads and posters somehow play on the ‘guilt factor’ while marketing their product. Contraceptive pills, ads for abortion, ads that raise awareness for HIV/AIDS or venereal diseases always have an undercurrent of guilt. Especially if the ad is female oriented.
Even ad companies who make the contraceptive ads (supposedly in favor of female empowerment) show this bias. Take these two ad films for example:

1) This one was aired first. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Hindi, the lady at the end of the video suggests to take the i-pill so that one may avoid an abortion. The ad seems to market the product smoothly enough. I’d like you to observe the expression on the young girl’s face. Each second of this film asserts that aborting a child is WRONG. I ask, why is it so?

2) The second film is a little less negative. This lady advises her daughter on the phone to take the i-pill so as to avoid a pregnancy. What she also says is, “If you’re pregnant, we’ll have to go for an abortion”. See here, the word abortion is used as a threat. If you don’t take the i-pill, we’ll have to abort the child. Now the daughter wouldn’t want that, would she?

On the other hand, ads for male contraception i.e. condoms are always erotic and sensual in nature. Somehow this Ad seems to be reassuring the man the using contraception isn’t going to rob him of his masculinity. See this one for instance. Forget the White neighborhood or the fact that some men weren’t Indian; just wait for the jackpot at the end of the commercial.

While Betty Friedan can cry herself hoarse chanting “Abortion is a woman’s civil right”, we will still continue to look at abortion as a sin. In the light of today’s grim realities of female feticides and girl child murders these words definitely mean squat to the Indian culture. I need to go find an oven to put my head in now.

~ Jaded16