Recently in Feminism Category

Today is the largest march in the history of American feminism. Almost one million men and women are expected to assemble on the national mall this afternoon to affirm a woman's right to safe access to abortion, accurate sexuality education, sexual health care, and opportunity.

I will be in the media section photographing the event. I will post my story of the event when I get home this afternoon. Watch C-SPAN all day for live coverage.

I strongly recommend reading Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush written by Gail Sheehy for the New York Observer. These women are accomplishing so much in the face of administration stonewalling.

Save Women's Lives: March for Freedom of Choice | | April 25, 2004

If any samfelder.com readers want to attend the biggest Pro-Choice rally ever you are welcome to stay with Julie and I. Please come to DC to stand up against the Bush administration and for a woman's right to choose.

It's the hottest news in Illinois since every possible Republican candidate for Senate said they are not interested in running for the seat being vacated by Peter Fitzgerald. Yesterday the Illinois House overcame 21 years of failed attempts and moved one step closer to being the 36th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago, had already agreed to sponsor the amendment, which reads: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex. The measure does not need the governor's signature and 38 states are needed to challenge the sunset clause of the amendment. For more information on how to advocate for this important amendment to our constitution please visit www.equalrightsamendment.org.

According to this article from the New York Times, the three-year old Women's E-News site (of which I am long time subscriber) discovered that Saudi Arabia was the fifth largest source of viewers for the site. There were also a large numbers of visitors from neighboring Qatar. Women's E-News, as you might guess, provides news about abortion rights, domestic violence, single motherhood, women in athletics, and women's rights movements around the world.

Both Saudi Arabia and Qatar have stringent web censorship policies, akin to those we hear so much about in China, that block sites about women in history, Planned Parenthood's TeenWire, and iVillage.

The most prominent article for the site describes efforts by Israeli and Palestinian women to encourage their peers to discuss peace and coexistence issues they believe male negotiators have neglected. Another article examines Egyptian women's efforts to win divorce rights. And a third is on the sewing workshops where Palestinian women earn a living in the absence of male breadwinners.

Yesterday's New York Times carried an article outlining the generational divide between pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates. The generation that grew up with the debate focussed on the rights of the fetus and specific procedures, particularly the so-called 'Partial Birth Abortion' procedure, are more sympathetic to arguments of the anti-abortion position. As one girl plainly says in the article "It's more about the baby's rights than the woman's rights."

To take that position is to say that you as a woman will readily give your life for the life of a fetus that would then live life without you as a mother. I think that it is important to articulate why this position is wrong. If the choice is presented between fetus and mother choosing the mother is an ethical position and for many people is a religious position.

I as a Jew value the life of a mother above that of her unborn children. Although an unborn fetus is precious and is to be protected, Judaism views the life of the mother as paramount, placing a higher value on existing life than on potential life. Women are commanded to care for the health and well being of their bodies above all else. Therefore, there are several instances in Judaism where abortions are not only condoned, but are mandated. In the Mishnah Ohaloth 7:6, for example, a woman is forbidden from sacrificing her own life for that of the fetus, and if her life is threatened, she is allowed no other option but abortion. In this situation the fetus is considered a pursuer who intends to kill the person pursued. Torah commands the pursuer be stopped, killed if necessary to protect the person pursued. And so the
fetus, in this instance the pursuer, is terminated.

In addition, if the mental health, sanity, or self-esteem of the woman (i.e. in the case of rape or incest) is at risk due to the pregnancy itself, the woman is permitted to terminate the pregnancy. It is due to the intrinsic Jewish belief in the sanctity of life that abortion is viewed as both a moral and correct decision under some circumstances.

I look to the Religious Coalition on Reproductive Choice as an example of deeply religious people supporting the rights of women and mothers not despite their belief but because of it. From a secular point of view, Luce Irigaray argues that among the most fundamental rights held by women as women is the freedom from intrusion. Whether rape or unwanted pregnancy, the female body is not a vessel, it is a woman.

I am, as you can tell by reading this, pro-choice. I am sad that many young women today do not confront the challenges presented by the issues surrounding sexuality and abortion and instead assume more dogmatic positions. Abortion rights need to be defended because they are under attack more now than ever. This New York Times article fails to present the many young people that I have seen working for reproductive choice. Planned Parenthood, NOW, Feminist Majority, NARAL, and many more organizations have organizing activity targeted to young people. These groups know that without educating the young all of their work has been wasted.

Without the right to choose women and families do actually suffer. One need only look to our recent history and to parts of the country where there are de facto prohibitions of abortion. I agree very strongly with the Jewish position of ambivalence. This is a complicated ethical issue. But when it comes down to it, the ethical choice, at times the existential choice, can only be made by the individual woman.

For the last few years I have been on the national Planned Parenthood Voices for Choice VOX e-mail list. I just got an e-mail that I had to share with all of you who love to bake. If you ever feel the need to make cookies for a V-Day or otherwise feminist event please consider making vulva/uterus/vagina/breast/penis cookies.

"Here is the recipe Reed Vox in Portland, Oregon uses. It is actually a recipe for the traditional Jewish cookies, Hamentaschen. One of our members dug up her parents' (both rabbis) recipe. They loved the new use for the traditional cookies.

We use the Murbe Teig dough recipe:

3 cups flour
1.5 cups sugar
1.5 cups butter
3 eggs
6 teaspoons baking powder
6 teaspoons (or to taste) vanilla
lemon rind of three lemons (grated)

Mix by spoon then by hand.
Refrigerate for two hours (or overnight) or freeze for at least 1 hour.

We cut out squares and circles and shape them to whatever genital organ we want to represent. Often for uteri we'll fill the cookie with some sort of jam (pre-baked) and then it will be a gooey, jam-filled, uterus-shaped cookie when it comes out. Don't overfill them though as the jam melts in the oven (and it is really hot and bubbly when it comes out.) Other times we'll decorate breasts with red hots as nipples or use icing to decorate cookies after they are baked. These always go over really well. Use your imagination and shape the cookies how they need to be.

We bake them at 350ish. We have to watch them to make sure they don't burn. It depends on how thinly the dough is rolled as to how quickly they will burn."

Leading up to International Women's Day this Saturday, Code Pink has organized a great week of events starting today with performances of Lysistrata. The national movement to deprive war loving people of lovin' from their partners acheive 1004 readings of the play in 54 countries.

More postings as the week of celebration and advocacy continues. Let me know about International Women's Day events in your community.

Thirty years ago today the Supreme Court of the United States acknowledged that prohibitions on a woman's right to choose to have a medical abortion violated her right to privacy. Today we live in a time when that decision could well be overturned and is being extremely limited in many states around the country. With the federal government under the tight control of the Bush White House and Carl Rove serving as the supreme chancellor of domestic policy, we can only begin to imagine what is in store at the national level.

For many activists who fought for Roe, todays reality seems dangerously similiar to that facing women thirty-one years ago. Abortion policy in this country is a patchwork of state regulations and restrictions; women are left to fend for themselves or be lucky enough to know of an organzation that will help them in their choice. This morning, NPR played a commentary by a women whose point was that the new generation of women are opposed to abortion because it is "violent" and do not see it as a medical choice. The commentator was a born again former feminist who hadn't received the support she expected after she had her abortion procedure. I am sympathetic to that situation and that is why I work with Planned Parenthood to help increase the options open to women and to make all children wanted children.

The biggest problem with her argument was the point that because abortion is available all children are wanted because they could freely be aborted. Anyone who has worked with family planning agencies know that this is not the reality. It may be that many middle class women feel that birth control falls from the sky and is available to everyone but that is not the reality of many women in this country. Family planning is not universally accepted in our society and many many children are not wanted. I don't really feel like engaging her strange correlation between abortion and child abuse so instead I will give you BuzzFlash's interview with NOW President Kim Gandy. Enjoy and may this year be another year of choice!