[Peace-discuss] Re:AWARE support for EC

[jencart]

I agree w/ you 100%, Brooke, have supported women's right to  reproductive choice long before I was an AWARE member.  Glad we're backing this worthy cause.    Jenifer C.
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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 comm