[Peace-discuss] Re: [Peace] AWARE Minutes-10-10-04

[Brooke Anderson]

Dear Carl, Mort, and AWARE friends,

First, as an organizer for CCHCC's Campaign for Access to Emergency 
Contraception, I want to thank you all for co-sponsoring our upcoming 
rally in support of greater access to emergency contraception (or EC, 
for short). We really appreciate your help and support and I was 
dismayed on the list to see suggestions to withdraw this support.

Second, I wanted to respond to your messages, Carl and Mort, and 
provide people with some more accurate information about what EC is, 
and (perhaps more importantly) what it is NOT.

Emergency contraception (or EC) is a special dose of ordinary birth 
control pills that can prevent unintended pregnancy if taken within 
up to five days of unprotected intercourse, contraceptive failure, 
sexual assault, or incest. EC is definitely NOT an abortafacient, and 
is not at all the same thing as RU-486 (or what is sometimes called 
"the abortion pill"). EC works by: (1) preventing ovulation, (2) 
preventing fertilization, and/or (3) preventing implantation of a 
fertilized egg into the uterus -- all of which occur prior to the 
medical definition of pregnancy, which is the implantation of a 
fertilized egg into the uterus. Therefore, EC can only prevent 
pregnancy, and simply CANNOT terminate an existing pregnancy. If a 
woman is already pregnant, EC will have no effect and will do no harm 
to a developing fetus. If you believe EC is an abortafacient, then 
you must, by definition, also believe that regular birth control 
pills and devices are abortafacients -- as they work by the exact 
same mechanisms (in fact, EC is really just a larger dose of regular 
birth control pills, but which can be taken after, not just before, 
intercourse).

If you believe that life begins with the mere presence of sperm 
inside a woman (as opposed to a fertilized egg implanted into a 
woman's uterus), then that is your individual religious belief and 
your choice not to use EC. However, I would urge you not to force 
your religious beliefs on others and oppose women's access to EC. In 
fact, when half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, and 
half of those end in abortion, greater access to EC could greatly 
reduce the need for an incidence of abortion in this country. So if 
you oppose abortion, you should really support greater access to 
regular and emergency forms of contraception.

On a more personal note, in a world run by men that devalues women 
and children's lives, I find it troubling to see men in the anti-war 
movement dismiss women's issues as somehow irrelevant - or even an 
obstacle - to our larger movement for social justice. By progressive 
men like y'all aligning on reproductive justice issues with men in 
power like Bush who are hell bent on limiting women's access to 
family planning, contraception, sex education, abortion, and 
pre-natal care, and yet not providing any health care, education, 
housing, food, etc. for new mothers and their little ones, etc. -- by 
aligning with Bush on this, y'all are just sending a message to those 
of us women in the anti-war movement who've also fought like hell to 
end this war, that we're not welcome, our lives and concerns aren't 
of importance to you, and that the new social order we're fighting 
for won't value us any more than we're valued today by the Bush 
administration.

If we're talking about what will make the anti-war movement welcoming 
and applicable to diverse communities, I find astounding the 
suggestion that supporting women's right makes our movement less 
friendly to people who are not "self-described liberals."  Many of 
the women organizing for EC  in our community and beyond are poor and 
working class women, high school women, and other women traditionally 
excluded from the political system, as well as from anti-war and 
other progressive movements. I'd hate to have to tell such women 
we're working with, some of whom have had to get EC after having been 
assaulted by friends or family members and some of whom have worked 
hard in the anti-war movement, that they have a "casualness towards 
human life" or that their needs are thought by some in AWARE to be an 
impediment to building an anti-war movement. That would be 
unfortunate.

I'd be interested to hear what the * WOMEN *  in AWARE think about EC 
and the relationship of women's movements for reproductive rights and 
economic justice to the movement to end the war.

Thanks,
Brooke.






At 9:38 PM -0500 10/11/04, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>I left the meeting early Sunday (I'm doing a walk-on in the current
>Station Theatre play, Aristocrats -- which I can recommend in good
>conscience, as my contribution is slight), so I wasn't there when this
>matter was discussed. I should have spoken against it for two reasons, one
>substantive and one tactical. "Emergency contraception" may be necessary
>for victims of rape, but it's understood by some as an abortifacient; its
>general promotion does seem to suggest a casualness towards human life
>that we decry in other US government policies. Tactically, it's the sort
>of issue that Tom Frank describes in What's the Matter with Kansas? as
>derailing progressive politics.  An anti-war group that wants to talk to
>people other than self-described liberals should stay away from it.  --CGE
>
>
>On Mon, 11 Oct 2004, David Green wrote:
>
>>  ...  We agreed to co-sponsor a rally for emergency contraception
>>  access, Oct. 28, 5:30-6:30, SE corner of Neil & Green (mini-park 2)...
>
>
>
>
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-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brooke Anderson, Community Organizer
Champaign County Health Care Consumers
44 E. Main St., Suite 208
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone = (217) 352-6533, x 17
Fax = (217) 352-9745
Email = brooke at shout.net
Web = http://www.healthcareconsumers.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~