Posts tagged reproductive rights

dancing-painted-bears:

• White
• Healthy
• Not born from a person who did drugs
• No siblings
• No behavior problems
• White
• Under the age of two
• White

(via lavenderlabia)

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

While Texas is only state currently forcing people to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds, Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, AND VIRGINIA all have forced ultrasounds before an abortion. 

Oklahoma and North Carolina have passed similar laws to the one in Texas but they are not being enforced due to pending court decisions.

Guttmacher’s updated .pdf of what ultrasound laws are passed and in effect in which states.

________________________________________

And today, I want to thank Andrea Grimes for a KYBOOMU shout out at RH Reality Check. You should read her entire piece about the TX reproductive health crisis, but I’ll just highlight this one part:

But just because the CRR has run up against a judicial roadblock in Texas doesn’t mean that Texans are giving up. Especially online, the fight continues with activists taking to social media, wherein the popular and cheeky Keep Your Boehner Out Of My Uterus Tumblr has been posting an ongoing day-by-day reminder that Texas’ ultrasound law isn’t going away, and the #TXreprohealth hashtag continues to gain in popularity.

(Source: keepyourbsoutofmyuterus)

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

[via]

[NB: This denial of federal funds will hurt more people than just cis women]

I will be here on Tuesday night —————->

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

6:00pm until 7:30pm

In front of the Texas State Capitol at 11th and Congress

Women’s Health Express Bus is coming to the Texas Capitol with Cecile Richards! 

Texas Governor Rick Perry and his conservative allies have once again chosen politics over Texas women. To Governor Perry, women’s health is just a political game. 

Governor Perry would rather throw health care for an additional 130,000 women overboard than allow Planned Parenthood to provide health care like breast and cervical cancer screenings, birth control, and STD prevention through public health programs.

Join Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other special guests in sending a message to Governor Perry— you’ve done enough damage. Don’t take away women’s access to health care!

………………………………………………….

Are you a WHP recipient? Share your story here! http://tinyurl.com/6vbur6j

Want to share your story at the rally? Call Dru at (512) 276-8076 or e-mail drucilla.tigner@ppaustin.org

See you at the bus!

(Source: keepyourbsoutofmyuterus)

atheismfuckyeah:

This morning, Democrats tore into House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) for preventing women and minorities from testifying before a hearing examining the Obama administration’s new regulation requiring employers and insurers to provide contraception coverage to their employees. Republicans oppose the administration’s rule and have sponsored legislation that would allow employers to limit the availability of birth control to women.

Ranking committee member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) had asked Issa to include a female witness at the hearing, but the Chairman refused, arguing that “As the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception but instead about the Administration’s actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience, he believes that Ms. Fluke is not an appropriate witness.”

And so Cummings, along with the Democratic women on the panel, took their request to the hearing room, demanding that Issa consider the testimony of a female college student. But the California congressman insisted that the hearing should focus on the rules’ alleged infringement on “religious liberty,” not contraception coverage, and denied the request. Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) walked out of the hearing in protest of his decision, citing frustration over the fact that the first panel of witnesses consisted only of male religious leaders against the rule. Holmes Norton said she will not return, calling Issa’s chairmanship an “autocratic regime.”

AlterNet

See a video compilation of the exchange at the link.

I’ve bolded the part I thought needed the most attention.

You know what that statement says? That says that women shouldn’t be allowed to talk ever, the men are being important and making important decisions, so the women should shut up and just take it.

IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW MUCH THESE PEOPLE TALK ABUOT IT BEING A RELIGIOUS FREEDOM/RIGHTS MATTER, THAT’S BULLSHIT - BECAUSE GUESS THE FUCK WHAT? IT IS A CONTRACEPTIVE, REPRODUCTIVE AND SEXUAL AUTONOMY MATTER.

THE EMPLOYEES WHO HAPPEN TO HAVE WOMBS ARE GOING TO BE AFFECTED BY THIS DECISION. THE EMPLOYEES WHO HAPPEN TO BE ABLE TO GET PREGNANT WILL BE AFFECTED BY THIS.

AND LOOK WHO’S ON THIS PANEL. OLD, WHITE, CIS-MEN OF A RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVE BENT.

TELL ME THESE OLD, WHITE, CONSERVATIVE, RELIGIOUS CIS-MEN AREN’T JUST SCARED OF WOMEN HAVING CONTROL OF THEIR OWN BODIES.

GO ON. TELL ME THAT. WITH A STRAIGHT FACE AND NO SNIGGERING.

Fuck the Republicans.

Sometimes I am so grateful to be British. I get to actually have control over my womb here.

~Mooglets

stfufauxminists:

Dear Roe vs. Wade,

You’re turning 39 this year. Congratulations! I know that you’re much older than I am and so you probably don’t need my wisdom (if you can even call it that), but I still think you deserve a hearty “yahoo!” on your continued existence, because although it often has its good points, life can also be hard.

Life is especially hard for those that help people in unpopular ways. Or for people who help those no one else deems worthy of it. When an entity does that, there are others who fight against them. They either create head-on clashes and challenge that entity directly, or they go through back ways, manipulate, and disempower in ways that become invisible - creating stealth attacks on progress, forming the culture to make it seem like snatching dignity from others is something that’s ok to do.

People now know that you’re too powerful at 39 to challenge you directly, so they’re trying to bring you down little by little. They’re trying to take your power (and the power of your siblings, Griswold v Connecticut, etc.) piece by piece, and so far it seems like its working.

So this is where I’d like to offer an apology, Roe v Wade, because I personally feel as though I’ve let you down. You’re much older than me, you see, and therefore in my eyes you’re a monolith. Ever since I heard of your existence it seems you’ve been able to withstand any weathering brought your way - too tall, too strong to be toppled by lies and misconceptions offered by those that oppose your very being as well as the rights and protections you afford me. 

But now I realize it’s not like that. While I’ve been staring at the summit, folks have been tunneling through the bottom. 

They have attempted to bar you from the domain of those you most need to help. They have cut-off the resources you need to do your work. And for the most part, I stood by and watched because I thought you could handle it. 

So I’m sorry for standing by while a record number of anti-abortion legislation was passed. I’m sorry for standing by while white cis-male politicians waxed poetic about the evils of your work. I’m sorry I haven’t offered you the support that anyone in a taxing and, in some instances, dangerous line of work needs to be successful. 

So now, on the anniversary of the day your were handed down from the Supreme Court, I would like to thank you. Thank you, Roe v Wade, for being there for so many people that needed abortions. Thank you for being there to calm the nerves of people who haven’t needed that yet, but might. People may be trying to take you away from us, or rip you apart from the inside out, but you still have an enormous amount of power for the people that depend on you in order to be able to access safe, legal abortion.

I’d like to make existing a little easier for you, Roe v Wade, and as such I am re-offering my support to you and the rest of the decisions and laws that protect my freedom to my own reproductive choices. I am also offering my support to any new legislation which will also work to those ends, and I am promising my effort to the fight against the insidiousness of anti-choice attacks, be they through patient dismantling of reproductive liberties or full-on charges against the front lines. 

I’m damn tired of politicians, pundits, and anyone else who thinks they can step all over you, wear you down, or disregard you all together. Your fight is for me, so my fight should be for you. 

Thanks again for everything that you do to ensure me the independence and equal societal access that I deserve as a human person. I will do my best to make sure that you and other forms of legislation that secure my rights are treated with the dignity that you have afforded me these last 39 years.

Love,

Megan Delilah

(P.S. Hey Roe v Wade! Read other folks talking about how awesome you are here.)