Upcoming Events: Youth and Reproductive Justice Leadership Conferences You Should Know About

For all of those young feminists and reproductive justice advocates out there, we wanted to share two great conference opportunities on the horizon:

• In advance of Sister Song's 3rd annual, Let's Talk About Sex Conference, our fantastic reproductive justice grantee has put out a call for workshop proposals. This year's conference theme is "Love, Legislation and Leadership" and organizers are looking for workshops that "highlight cutting edge visions that address issues on sex, sexuality, and sexual pleasure." The deadline for submissions is February 11, 2011; the conference itself is set to take place July 14 - 17 in Miami Beach, FL. Get your proposals in before it's too late!
  
  
• The 7th Annual National Young Feminist Leadership Conference, sponsored by the Feminist Majority Foundation, will take place March 12-14, 2011 at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. This year's event will focus on the impact of young women's advocacy on both domestic and global issues, and will conclude with a day of visits with Members of Congress. Early bird registration ($20 per person) closes on February 1 (that's today!); regular registration ($30 pp) will remain open through March 9, 2011.

Alaska Quashes Abortion Access for Young Women

The fight for reproductive freedom in Alaska has just reached its boiling point.

Last week, Alaska voters passed an initiative requiring that the parents of women aged 17 and under must be notified before any abortion procedure takes place. The new law also puts in place a 48-hour waiting period between parental notification and performance of the procedure.

While it's true that this new legislation does not require parental consent (an earlier law that did was deemed unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court), and while it does allow for a judge to bypass the required notification, the law nevertheless places young women -- and their doctors -- in a precarious situation.

Doctors who fail to notify the parents of an underage patient seeking an abortion could face "felony charges and a prison sentence of up to five years." And for the young women affected by the new law, accessing an abortion just got one step closer to next to impossible. Not only is the measure likely to frighten a good number of young women away from even considering having the procedure (I have to tell my parents? Or stand in front of a judge? Forget it) and thus force them into teen parenthood, it will also inevitably put young women's lives at risk. Many could find themselves homeless if their parents disagree with their choice. Others could find themselves battered or dead for exactly the same reason.

Abortion may still be legal in Alaska, but voters have now made it a potentially harmful, even deadly, procedure for the young Alaskan women whose families may have different views then their own about a woman's right to choose. Remember what it was like to be 16 years old: how many of us -- facing threats of violence or even just parental disapproval -- could say we'd have had the strength to follow through under these conditions? Probably very few -- and that is exactly what anti-choice advocates are hoping for.

(It's worth noting that Joe Miller, who's locked in a recount battle for the Republican nomination for one of Alaska's Senate seats, was a strong supporter of the ballot measure; Miller was endorsed by the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and other far right notables. Lisa Murkowski, the Republican incumbent, may end up losing her seat in the Senate because she refused to take an outspoken stance in support of the measure.)

Alaska is one among dozens of states where forces on the right are rolling back access to abortion while its legality is maintained in name only. Just days before the vote in Alaska, we wrote about exactly that threat, and noted how past and current grantees like Advocates for Youth and SisterSong -- not to mention organizations like COLOR and NLIRH -- are doing the hard work of pushing back against these restrictive measures around the nation. We support these organizations because we believe in their power to turn back the tide of anti-choice legislation making its way across our nation; help us help them by making a donation to the cause today.

Donate now and a special matching grant will double your support -- dollar-for-dollar -- for reproductive justice organizations led by women of color.

Access to Abortion is the Fight of the Future

If you've been looking for a clear elucidation of the difference between fighting for "reproductive rights" and "reproductive justice" -- and why a focus on the latter is increasingly important -- you may want to read Amanda Marcotte's excellent article running on RH Reality Check today.

Framing the conversation around a recent episode of "Mad Men" that featured an abortion, Marcotte explains that, unlike in days past, hinging our current battle for reproductive freedom on protecting the right to abortion just isn't enough. The fact is that anti-choice activists are finding more and more ways to restrict access to abortion, even as the right to it stays nominally in place. This chipping away at our ability to actually access abortions (think of the Hyde Amendment, or any of the many restrictions currently winding their way through state legislatures) is particularly damning for low-income women and young women -- who often lack the resources to pay for abortions, or any of the attendant expenses that may come along with them (when, for example, you're forced to travel out of state to find a provider who might even perform the procedure).

Marcotte doesn't just blame anti-choicers for moving us back to a time where only women with resources could access abortion, even if it was illegal. She also faults the pro-choice movement for failing to capitalize on opportunities (like the most recent health care debates) to increase access for women without resources. The price for those strategic failures will be paid by the millions of young women and low-income women who know better than anyone else that these rights mean precious little when you are denied the opportunity to exercise them.

If we want to make sure that we all have the ability to make the same set of determinations about our bodies and health, then the fight on the reproductive health front must be about ensuring access as much as it is about anything else. "We must view abortion rights less as a thing in and of themselves," Marcotte suggests, "and more as a means to the end of access."

That's a notion the Ms. Foundation has been working to make a reality for decades. Over the years we have helped grow a national reproductive justice movement that places reproductive rights and health within a broader social justice context -- and elevates the voices of those who are most affected by failed policies, but least heard in the national debate: low-income women, women of color, immigrant women and LGBTQ individuals. Our past and current support of organizations like Advocates for Youth and SisterSong (both of which Marcotte lauds in her article) exemplifies our commitment to building a world where all individuals are equally able to make their own choices regarding their reproductive health -- not just the privileged few.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: no woman should find herself forced to forgo an abortion because she can't afford one, can't find a licensed provider, or is intimidated out of the procedure. Take the time to read Marcotte's article, and add your voice to the conversation about where the fight to protect our reproductive health goes from here.



Photo: Christina Hendricks as Joan Harris in Mad Men.

Insidious and Racist Anti-Choice Campaign Brews in Georgia

Georgia has recently been bombarded by a full-frontal assault of anti-choice propaganda and an attempt to demonize abortion providers as perpetrators of race-based crimes.

Over the last month in Atlanta, about 80 large billboards that depict a seemingly distressed child and the bleak message, “Black Children are an Endangered Species,” have been posted throughout neighborhoods with a majority African American population; the billboards direct people to the website, TooManyAborted.com, which links abortion and reproductive health providers to eugenics and racially-motivated population control. The implication is more than a little disturbing -- it’s dangerous. Like a smear campaign gone haywire, the billboards’ backers, Georgia Right to Life, the Radiance Foundation, and Operation Outrage, use blatant disinformation tactics to vilify and demonize advocates for reproductive health and choice.

Women’s health advocates are fighting back. Ms. Foundation grantees, SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW! and SisterSong, are part of a coalition of organizations aggressively challenging the billboards’ message. [Support their efforts here and here.] The fact is that of the 15 abortion providers in Georgia only four are located in predominantly African American neighborhoods. What's more, Georgia’s relatively high abortion rate among African American women accounts in part for the reality that the state, and Atlanta specifically, acts as a hub for women seeking abortion services from neighboring states where accessibility to safe and legal abortions is becoming increasingly rare.

Ultimately, of course, it is the underlying unequal access to health and education that have the most devastating impact on the sexual and reproductive health of women of color. On February 12, SisterSong’s Heidi Williamson told NPR’s Morning Edition [see player below] "The enemy is not black women, the enemy is poverty. The enemy is uninsured children and not properly funding education so that we can make sure there are comprehensive sex education programs and pregnancy prevention programs."

And these billboards are only the surface of the problem – the exterior face of a full-on legislative racist and sexist campaign against abortion. The billboards’ creators are all strongly supporting recent legislation, Georgia House Bill 1155, which seeks to ban the alleged solicitation of women of color by abortion providers. According to SisterSong [see their fact sheet and talking points (pdf)], the bill’s language is “inflammatory” and its premise “unfounded.” It would delay and complicate access to essential health services by requiring that all providers prove that they are not ”soliciting” African American women, and it would effectively challenge the legality of abortion by amending the racketeering laws to include abortion providers—classifying them as “organized crime”.

The billboard and legislative campaigns represent a tandem assault on the minds and bodies of women of color in Georgia. They both use inflammatory accusations and condescending propositions [see this great piece on RH Reality Check] to obscure the underlying issues that force many low-income women and women of color to make difficult decisions about their pregnancies. In fact, they assume that African American women are not capable of making independent decisions regarding their health; they capitalize on the anti-choice contingent’s crusade to limit sexual health education; and, most frighteningly, they manipulate this knowledge gap for their own purposes. As SPARK says, “Black women know what is best for our lives, our families, and our communities and are capable of making these decisions without a coordinated assault by organizations that are not genuinely committed to addressing the host of social issues confronted by the black community.”

To support the campaign against the billboards (which, in another twist, are owned by CBS Outdoors, the outdoor advertising division of CBS Corporation, which has increasingly been tooting the anti-choice horn) or the legislation, check out SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW! and SisterSong for action alerts.

Read more about the one-sided media coverage and the efforts of Loretta Ross (SisterSong) to speak back.