To remedy this, Thomas’ Elijah Ministries has started the Kingdom Leadership Institute, a weeklong ideological boot camp for home-schooled Christians between the ages of 14 and 21. His recently released book, The Kingdom Leadership Institute Manual, is a roadmap for their training and a fascinating—if twisted—look at the concerns of far right evangelicals, complete with a game plan for action.
There’s no pussy-footing in Thomas’ screed. For him the battle between God and Satan is at hand, pitting True Believers against Sinners. Common ground? Impossible since there are only two sides, one resulting in heavenly salvation and the other ending with the earth’s destruction.
“Life is not a playground,” he rails. “It is a war zone—a clash of ideas, philosophies, values, and worldviews. It demands leaders who do not shrink back in [sic] the day of battle.” He calls it “spiritual warfare” and repeatedly summons images straight out of the Middle Ages, with gallant Knights protecting grateful maidens, and courtliness trumping gender equity.
Contemporary equals bad, he rants. “During Colonial times, children would be up at four in the morning to help with chores; spoke only when spoken to by an adult; and by the age of seven or eight, boys had chosen their craft or trade and were ready to become apprentices. What a contrast compared to the unruliness, laziness, and lack of direction that characterizes many in this generation.” One can only wonder about the regimen imposed on the good reverend’s 13 children and two grandchildren.
As Thomas sees it, the crisis facing today’s young people is a direct result of American secularism-- you know, those pesky rules separating religion and government. In his telling, the lead culprit is the Supreme Court which has usurped God’s legal authority, outlawing prayer in schools, sanctioning abortion and gay rights, and allowing infidels—AKA Muslims—to live freely among us.
Remember Alabama Judge Roy Moore? So does Thomas, and he is still smarting from Moore’s 2003 comeuppance. Moore—one of Thomas’ few heroes—had posted the 10 Commandments in the Rotunda of the state Judicial Building, something most folks—Christians and non—saw as a violation of church/state separation. Not Moore. Given a choice between removing the Commandments or losing his job, he chose the latter which demonstrates, says Thomas, how far the Godly have fallen in the US of A.
Thomas’ solution for changing this and returning American youth to the Christian fold is straightforward, if absurd, and starts with home schooling. Women, he writes, should quit working for money and instead work on inculcating “Christian values”, including male supremacy, in the next generation. “A patriarch is a family ruler. He is the man in charge,” Thomas begins. “Biblical manhood demands men … defend and shield or cover women from injury, evil or oppression.” Not surprisingly, Thomas puts forward an essentialized view: Men are logical, women emotional and spiritually attuned. Feminist challenges to this monochromatic definition are anathema to nature, he charges. Worse, they challenge the male birthright to establish a “dynasty” at home.
Yep, you read right. A dynasty.
“Feminists charge that Christianity promotes a patriarchal religion, which oppresses women and steals their potential. Although it is true that Christianity is patriarchal, the function of true patriarchy is to protect, provide, and care for women and children. Biblical patriarchy is expressed as chivalry,” Thomas writes.
You can almost see Thomas squirming at the idea of women’s equality or the varied gender expressions feminists have championed. And then there’s his obvious discomfort with power-wielding females. “A woman can manipulate, dominate and control a man to the point that his manhood is slowly eaten away like a cancer,” he raves. Finally, there’s the ultimate rightwing putdown: “Too many women seek value by trying to become men, lead as men, and be aggressive as men.”
For Thomas, the call is not only to criminalize abortion and homosexuality, return prayer to the schools, get women out of the workplace, and declare the U.S. a Christian nation, but also to impose Biblical rule on all who reside within our national borders. Furthermore, he’s going for blood—and I mean that literally. “Whether we like it or not, ours is a bloody religion,” he explains. “Beginning with God slaying the animals to cover Adam and Eve after the fall…to the final sacrifice by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, one theme rings true. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.”
It’s hard to know whether this is an oblique reference to murdering abortion providers or is a more literal reference to the war Thomas envisions between his parishioners and everyone else.
But either way, Thomas’ fighting words are sure to unsettle at least some of his youthful charges, sending them squarely into the arms of 21st century secularism.
I say a hearty amen to that. Hallelujah.
]]>Now, OSA’s scope has broadened to include a new bogey, Islam, and the group has aligned itself with an international team of fear-mongers to fight the religion’s spread. The impetus for this involvement was a late-September outdoor prayer service in Washington DC which brought hundreds of Muslims to the nation’s capital. Called by the Dar-ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth, New Jersey, organizers told the press that they wanted “to show that not all Muslims hate America.” They further stated that they’d been inspired by President Obama’s outreach to the Muslim community.
While these hardly seem like fighting words, OSA saw the event differently. “We can be killed by them. We can kill them. We can convert them to Christ. Which will you choose?” screamed the OSA website’s banner headline in the days leading up to the worship service. Should OSA’s message still not be clear to readers, the webpage continued: “Islam has been at war with Christianity for 14 centuries. There is no dialogue, no common ground. No reaching across the aisle in this battle. We are not called to build bridges to Islam. We are called to storm the Gates of Hell—to defeat the false God of Islam with the unsheathed word of God.”
OSA’s blatant racism got a boost from a 15-minute film called FITNA, created by Dutch politician Geert Wilders in 2008, and subsequently posted on OSA’s website. A lightening rod in his own right, Wilders was named 2009’s Man of the Year by the ultra-rightwing FrontPage Magazine but was barred from entering any part of the United Kingdom in mid-February. The reason? According to Britain’s Parliament, Wilder’s work incites hatred and discrimination.
Among Wilder’s pronouncements: “Islam is not a religion, it’s a political ideology. It’s heart lies in the Qur’an, a book that calls for submission, hatred, and war and orders all Muslims to kill non-Muslims…The purest joy in Islam is to kill and be killed…Islam should be compared with other totalitarian philosophies like Communism and Nazism.” Laughably, Wilders concludes by stating that he “has no hatred toward any person whatsoever.”
For its part, OSA goes one further, revving up a holy war between “the true God of the Bible versus the false God, Allah.” While most folks believe the Crusades ended 700 years ago, this memo has apparently not reached OSA’s in-box. “Any attempt to declare God and Allah are one and the same—they are not!” their website bellows. “Islam will not be tolerated by God and it certainly must not be tolerated by Christians. Any attempt at dialogue or finding common ground with this enemy is a ruse by the devil himself.”
And that’s not the worst of it. OSA liberally sprinkles phrases about Islam’s alleged intent—conquering the Judeo-Christian world and imposing Shar’ia Law—in its missives, and weaves footage of carnage from September 11 and the heinous London and Madrid terrorist attacks to stomach-churning, if disingenuous, effect.
It seems so over the top that it’s tempting to ignore these OSA histrionics. After all does anyone really believe that a religious war is imminent or even possible? I, for one, would surely support this approach if the group’s efforts reflected the isolated ramblings of a small circle of cranks. But they do not.
Although OSA is the only anti-abortion group to have jumped on the anti-Muslim bandwagon thus far, a broad network of organizations—Atlas Shrugs and Jihad Watch are among the most prominent—aided by FOX News, Newsmax, FrontPage, National Review, and columnists Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, are working overtime to present Islam in the worst possible light. Jihad Watch, for example, last month posted a lurid article called Romeo Jihad about young girls being kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam by male Internet predators. The message—they’re coming for “our” women—is reminiscent of Klan attempts to stir up race hatred during much of the twentieth century.
And don’t forget Newt Gingrich. His Newsmax ramblings about American “efforts to drive the Cross off public lands” are intended to bolster the notion of Christian victimhood and inspire fear and loathing in his readers. “You actually have schools today that will have a class on Islam but refuse to have a class on Christianity,” he rails.
Ibrahim Hooper, National Communications Director of the DC-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, says that he is not surprised that an antiabortion group like OSA has joined the anti-Muslim fray. ”People who promote bigotry and extremism often don’t limit themselves to one issue,” he says.
At the same time, OSA’s foray into anti-Muslim racism has caused unprecedented rifts within the anti-choice community. Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition has made the schism clear. “The church should not run from Muslims in America but begin reaching out with God’s love…The heart of Christ is to build bridges to all people regardless of what their faith tradition or beliefs might be.
For the first time ever, we’re in complete agreement.
####.
THE COUNCIL ON AMERICAN-ISLAMIC RELATIONS HAS LAUNCHED SEVERAL CAMPAIGNS AGAINST HATE. FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO WWW.CAIR.COM.
]]>
Editor's Note: A correction was made to this article at 6:54 pm Tuesday, September 15th, to reflect a mistake in the fundraising totals achieved by Susan G. Komen. The Foundation raised $60 million last year alone and has raised $450 million over the course of the 27 years since it was founded.
In the early 1980’s Dr. Joel Brind, an endocrinologist at New York’s Baruch College, began reporting a link between abortion and breast cancer. According to Brind, any interruption in the hormonal changes caused by pregnancy would increase a woman’s breast cancer risk exponentially.
In the nearly 30 years since Brind’s so-called discovery, a bevy of international researchers have refuted his claim. The National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, for one, convened a workshop involving more than 100 of the world’s leading pregnancy experts in 2003. “Having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer,” they concluded.
Sadly, this well-publicized finding—corroborated by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Cancer Society, and the American Medical Association--has failed to quiet Brind and his anti-choice followers. Evidence notwithstanding, Brind’s cancer claim is consistently repeated on anti-abortion websites and in printed materials.
But apparently, preaching to their own hasn’t gotten the antis adequate play, so they are now targeting Susan G. Komen (SGK) for the Cure, a group that bills itself as “the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists.”
SGK is indeed huge. Last year alone it raised $60 million, and in the 27 years since its founding has raised more than $450 million for research into the causes and treatments of breast cancer, a disease that hits more than 190,000 women and nearly 2000 men a year. What’s more, the group provides easy-to-read data on treatment options for patients and their loved ones; resources for those looking to engage in activism or advocacy are also available.
While you probably think this sounds pretty benign, Catholic diocese across the U.S. and organizations like STOPP International, an affiliate of the American Life League, disagree and have dubbed Komen a menace to women. They’ve also launched a boycott of SGK’s Race for the Cure.
The naysayers have two objections. Want to stop breast cancer? they ask. Then advise women to begin reproducing when they are young and warn them about the abortion/breast cancer connection. Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, a frequent speaker at National Right to Life Committee events, goes so far as to call full-term pregnancy “protective,” as if women who give birth are somehow exempt from the disease.
Not surprisingly, this contention has gained little traction, even among right-wingers, so the anti-Komen posse has trucked out a reliable anti-abortion bugaboo, Planned Parenthood. Since its founding, Komen has provided grants to outside agencies, including--you guessed it—the reproductive health giant. According to John Hammarley, Senior Media Advisor to SGK, “Komen reaches out to the research community as well as those providing education, treatment, and screening for women, all in the name of trying to find cures for breast cancer and treating it as best we can in the meantime. Komen affiliates invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year in programs in their communities that are needed by women and men touched by this disease.”
About 20 of the 125 state Komen affiliates provide grants to local Planned Parenthood clinics. The money, Hammarley adds--approximately $800,000 in 2008—is used exclusively for breast cancer screening and educational programming, from information on how to do breast self exams to nutrition. Not a dime, Komen staff assures donors, pays for the provision of abortion or other reproductive health services. Instead the funds are used to provide diagnostic evaluations for uninsured and under-insured women who have no other access to professional breast exams.
This assurance does little to assuage Dr. Lanfranchi. “If aborting a pregnancy increases the risk of cancer and Planned Parenthood is the nation’s number one abortion provider, Komen is contributing to increasing the amount of breast cancer,” she rails. Similarly, Jim Sedlak of STOPP International carps that Planned Parenthood is “an organization that exploits women, corrupts youth, and increases the likelihood of breast cancer by promoting contraception and abortion.”
The illogic is staggering, not unlike the fear-mongering put forward by those who see healthcare reform as a Yellow Brick Road to socialism.
Still, there is good news to report. Although it’s far too soon to predict the upshot of the federal healthcare battle, by all accounts the anti-Komen campaign has fallen flat, doing little to hamper the group’s ongoing efforts. At the same time, Koman staff have had to respond to anti-choice criticism and recently hired two Catholic ethicists to rebut Diocesan efforts to stop the faithful from supporting SKG. “The good that Komen does and the harm that would come to many women if Komen ceased to exist or ceased to be funded would seem to be a sufficiently proportionate reason” for Christian support, the commentators wrote.
There’s obviously a lot at stake. Komen relies on corporate support for much of its research and programming; 24 companies currently donate $1 million and another 70 donate $100,000 to SGK each year. Clearly, should a large-scale boycott catch fire, it will have devastating consequences for Komen’s work with patients, their families, and those interested in cancer research.
Despite the threat, SGK’s Hammarley dismisses the opposition. “Our friends and supporters have been our strength throughout Komen’s history,” he says. “They have been stalwart in their support. Those opposed to Komen’s involvement with Planned Parenthood-sponsored programs have not impacted that support. Sponsors and affiliates have been threatened with boycotts, but thankfully we haven’t seen sponsors retreat.”
Let’s champion their resolve.
]]>I was stunned. Opening the booklet was even more shocking: Here, in simple language, was a step-by-step guide, with explicit illustrations, on insertion and removal of the polyurethane product.
And this was not the only thing I saw that promoted safer sex. A $10 phone card tells users, “It’s all about communicating. AIDS is something to be aware of. Don’t be afraid. Use protection.” In addition, songs on both the radio and on an MTV-like television program called Tempo remind listeners to avoid unnecessary risks and public service announcements offer a continuous stream of safe sex messages.
The Caribbean, of course, has the second highest HIV prevalence in the world—after Sub-Saharan Africa—and AIDS is a leading cause of death for 15 to 44-year-olds in the region. According to the Kaiser Family Fund, more than one percent of Caribbean residents are HIV positive. That this is a public health crisis goes without saying, but the response—by government, media, and the business and non-profit community—is nonetheless amazing, at least when compared to what we see and hear in the US of A. Here, the fact of 56,000 newly diagnosed cases of HIV a year, reported by Julie Davids and David Muner in RH Reality Check on August 24, 2009, gets scant notice.
But it is not just that the promotion of safer sex gets little play within mainstream America, it’s that even when it is mentioned, it is pooh-poohed by the religious and secular Rightwing. Take a recent e-mail blast from The Abstinence Clearinghouse, a national coalition of advocacy groups working to promote “sexual abstinence [purity] until marriage.” The mailing celebrated the release of a study with an oh-so-sexy title: Condom Use for Penile-Vaginal Intercourse is Associated with Immature Psychological Defense Mechanisms. The report, written by psychology professor Stuart Brody of the University of the West of Scotland and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior Journal, comes to a startlingly irresponsible conclusion: “Safe sex is not mentally safe.”
The upshot, Brody pontificates, is that the more frequently people have sex without condoms, the better their psychological well being. The reason? Condoms, he writes, block “the anti-depressants and immunological agents in semen and genital secretions,” thereby reducing sexual satisfaction and intimacy. Apparently, there’s nothing like the fear of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection to enhance pleasure. Even more absurd, Brody’s study—he reportedly surveyed 111 Portuguese men and 99 women—found that condom use also negates the mental health benefits of “evolutionary relevant sex.” That is, condoms block the biochemical response in “natural”--meaning procreative and heterosexual--contact.
Forget, for a moment, the blatant heterosexism on display. In 2007 Brody wrote that “Intercourse between women and men is the only form of sexual behavior that improves psychological and physiological function,” so his bias has previously been well documented.
This time, however, his promotion of mental health by denigrating condoms not only adds to the Right’s already-ample arsenal of specious anti-safe sex arguments, but is also a short leap to the championing of reckless, and possibly even lethal, sexual behaviors.
Martha Klempner, Vice President for Information and Communications at SIECUS and an RH Reality Check contributor, is appalled by Brody’s “science” and argues that there is “nothing we can do that is worse than bad-mouthing safe sex. People have sex because they have sex. If you tell young people that condoms won’t work, they will still have sex, but they just might not use protection.” SIECUS’ goal is to provide people with as much information about sex and sexual relationships as possible. This means, Klempner continues, offering people of all ages the tools to protect themselves from STDs. Furthermore, it means helping them to avoid pregnancy unless and until they’re ready to have a child.
“Condoms are important,” Klempner concludes. “They work, so I worry that Brody’s research will be used to convince young people that not using them is a good thing.”
Indeed, should Brody’s argument gain traction and stick, you can bet on an increased number of STDs and unplanned pregnancies. He—and the Abstinence Clearinghouse--should be ashamed of promoting such utter bunk.
]]>Not so the Christian Right. For them, these words are apparently equivocal, at least when it comes to the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender community. Aided by such anti-abortion organizations as Missionaries to the Preborn and Operation Save America, a coalition of "pro-family" groups - including Focus on the Family, The Traditional Values Coalition, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council - are organizing to stop Congressional passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, more commonly called the Hate Crimes bill.
ENDA starts with the assumption that employment discrimination against LGBTQ workers is harmful, violates standards of equality and fairness, and should be illegal. Its supporters - dozens of large corporations and groups including the ACLU, The Human Rights Campaign, NOW, The National Council of Churches, and The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights -believe that curtailing anti-queer discrimination requires adding sexual preference and gender identity to race, religion, color, sex and national origin, categories protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
A 2007 report by the ACLU attests to the need. According to Working in the Shadows, 38 states presently allow employers to fire or refuse to hire someone based on gender identity, meaning that someone who is transitioning from male-to-female or female-to-male can be let go for reasons having nothing to do with competence, skill, or performance. On top of this, 30 states allow employers to fire or refuse to hire someone because of his or her actual or perceived sexual orientation. As if this weren't enough, a 2007 survey conducted by careerbuilders.com and Kelly Services found that 78 percent of LGBTQ workers interviewed had experienced discrimination or unfair treatment on the job, from verbal taunts to physical assaults.
As written, ENDA applies to businesses with 15 or more employees but excludes both the military and religious organizations. Brian Moulton, Senior Counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, was involved in drafting ENDA. He favors using other legislative channels to repeal the military's current Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and explains that most civil rights laws exempt religious bodies from compliance. "Religious groups have a First Amendment right to determine that folks who perform particular functions can make decisions based on their religious beliefs. We want to respect this," he says.
You'd think this would mollify conservatives, but it doesn't. Concerned Women for America, for one, predicts that ENDA will "open businesses to harassment by homosexual activist lawyers" and lambastes the bill as "a gay power grab that will severely curb Constitutionally guaranteed inalienable rights that Americans hold dear, including the freedoms of speech, religion and association."
Focus on the Family goes even further, lamenting the "silencing" of those who "hold Biblically orthodox views on homosexual or transgender behavior."
These objections, however, are tame when compared to the vitriol spewed against the Hate Crimes bill. Named for Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old Wyoming student who was beaten to death by homophobes in 1998, the legislation will expand 1969's federal hate crime provisions to include "bias motivated crimes based on the victim's real or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability." It will also allow the feds to prosecute anti-LGBTQ hate crimes when local law enforcement doesn't.
Advocates utilize FBI statistics to bolster their case. Although the Bureau does not yet keep statistics on bias attacks against transsexuals, 1265 hate crimes linked to sexual orientation were logged in 2007, including 29 murders.
For progressives, the fact that people are targeted because of who they are makes the need for the Hate Crimes bill obvious. Not surprisingly, the Right disagrees.
Operation Save America rants that the bill will "criminalize the Bible and give pedophiles protected status."
The Family Research Council blasts that it will give "homosexuals and cross-dressers more protection against violence than children or the elderly," while Focus on the Family invokes the specter of Big Brother's muzzle, railing that "pastors who preach against homosexuality could end up prosecuted if they are found to have induced a hate crime against a self-identified homosexual by preaching from the Bible."
Not to be outdone, the website of The Traditional Values Coalition carps that the bill will "make at least 30 sexual orientations into federally protected minority groups." Those orientations? Among them are coprophilia, sexual arousal from feces, and apotemnophilia, arousal from the stumps of an amputee.
Really.
It's hard to respond to such absurdities but advocates have tried. They point out that the Hate Crimes Bill, like ENDA, specifies that religious objections to homosexuality are classified as neither hate crimes nor hate speech. Furthermore, they reiterate that neither bill does anything to curtail verbal dissent or protect pedophiles. What's more, they argue that the Act blocks information about speech or association from courtrooms unless "it is specifically related to the commission of a crime."
President Obama has indicated his support for ENDA, but Congress has yet to vote on it in this session
Meanwhile, the House and Senate recently passed Hate Crimes legislation, but don't uncork the champagne just yet. A conference to iron out disparities between the House and Senate versions is needed and compromise may be difficult thanks to a pro-death penalty rider appended by ultraconservative Jefferson Sessions III (R-AL) to the Senate version. Sessions' action puts progressives in a bind. Should we support legislation that includes capital punishment or oppose it unless the provision is deleted?
Debate continues. Both ENDA and the Hate Crimes bill are likely to move forward in September.
]]>Danielle then takes a deep, audible breath, lets out another sob, and slowly resumes talking to the answering machine at the Women's Medical Fund in Philadelphia.
I'm on cash assistance and just paid my electric bill so I don't have any money for an abortion. I need to come up with $250. Please, please help me.
Danielle is followed by Taneisha, Josenia, Courtney, Daisy, Shannon, Monica, Amara - 25 calls total, not including the dozen who've hung up without saying a word. Each of them says the same thing: She wants to have an abortion but cannot afford one.
It's morning at the Women's Medical Fund and counselors taking calls off the voicemail describe this parade of messages as typical. They seem nonplussed as they prepare to call each woman back, readying themselves to ask hard questions about personal finances, health, and family support systems to ascertain whether the Fund can assist them. It's a daunting task, made harder by the current economic climate, which leaves the Fund with less money to dispense.
It's not even 10:00 a.m. and I'm already overwhelmed. But the counselors - highly trained college interns and volunteers supervised by a paid staff of three - are cheerful, eager to do what they can for low-income women in their five-county catchment area of southeastern Pennsylvania.
The 24-year-old Fund was established in 1985, shortly after the state cut off Medicaid coverage for abortion. As one of the 102 groups in the National Network of Abortion Funds, its mission is to offer grants and loans to women who want to end unwanted pregnancies but lack the means to do so. Since its founding more than 12,000 Philadelphia-area teenagers and adult women have been aided and more than $1.6 million - all of it raised through individual donations and foundation grants - has been disbursed.
Still, like other members of NNAF, WMF staff look forward to the day when the Hyde Amendment - the hated 32-year-old bill that bans federal Medicaid coverage for abortion unless the woman was raped, violated by incest, or will die or face serious health complications if she carries the pregnancy to term - is overturned. As advocates, they favor expanding Medicaid to include all reproductive health services for low-income women.
Until then, however, WMF counselors have no choice but to ask each woman they speak with a litany of personal questions: Was she forced to have intercourse? Did a family member impregnate her? Was she ever warned that carrying a pregnancy to term might put her at medical risk? A "yes" on any of these queries sends both counselor and patient deep into government bureaucracy. They understand that if Medicaid will pay for the abortion, the WMF can stretch their increasingly limited dollars a bit further.
"We never have enough money," admits Susan Schewel, WMF's Executive Director, "but it has gotten worse. The recession has caused some of our donors to make cutbacks and our fall fundraising did not go as well as we had hoped." In fiscal 2008, which ran from July 1, 2007 until June 30, 2008, the Fund received $100,000 from local foundations; in fiscal 2009 they took in $60,000. Still, in fiscal 2009, more than $165,000 was distributed. What's more, nearly 500 women were assisted in the first four calendar months of this year, up almost 50 percent since 2008; the average grant: $139.
"The typical WMF caller is in her twenties, has a toddler or preschooler already, and is on either cash assistance or has a part-time, minimum wage job. Almost one-third are uninsured and 93 percent live below the federal poverty guideline for their family size," says Schewel. She continues:
A fair number of the women work part-time and go to school part-time. Their lives are really complicated but the one thing they have in common is that they're all doing the best they can. In fact that's my mantra: Everyone is doing the best she can.
That said, Schewel and WMF's counselors can't help but be frustrated by the fact that privately-run Funds have become an essential component of reproductive health care, filling gaps left by inadequate government funding.
"Our so-called safety net doesn't really act as a safety net," Schewel says. "Women can't live independently even if they access all the benefits they're entitled to: Medicaid, cash assistance, food stamps, child support. Even if she gets everything that's out there she can't live alone unless she has subsidized housing. The low-cost housing shortage in Philly is terrible so lots of women live with family or friends who are willing to put them up for a month, or a week, or a year but they're basically homeless. This crisis is exacerbated when the women becomes pregnant."
Twenty-seven-year-old Melissa, the mother of a three-year-old, faced an unplanned pregnancy crisis in mid-May. "It was a little more than a month before I was set to begin a nine-month training program to become a phlebotomist," she says.
When I got the pregnancy results I was scared and unsure about what to do but knowing that I couldn't afford an abortion made it worse. Once I found the Fund they helped me get everything together and slowly but surely things fell into place. I had already come up with as much money as I could on my own, and when I called the Fund, the counselor assured me that they'd help with the difference.
Catherine is in similar straits. Her voice is composed as she describes her predicament: She is 13.4 weeks pregnant and has an abortion scheduled for the following week. Then, slowly, in response to the counselor's questions, she confides that she is in poor health, listing problems including endometriosis, chronic Hepatitis C, asthma, and limited mobility.
Almost as an afterthought she mentions the horror she lives with: "My ex-husband ran me over with his car a while back. Five vertebrae were broken and my collarbone and left leg were shattered."
She can no longer work, she says, and has applied for Social Security Disability but has not heard back about her eligibility. In the interim, she and her 11-year-old son live with her sister and she receives a biweekly welfare grant of $158. "I'm extremely poor," she mumbles.
As the interview progresses, the counselor learns that Catherine's doctor has advised her against completing the pregnancy, warning that her already fragile health could be worsened by childbirth. Might this allow her to get Medicaid coverage? The counselor jots down Catherine's doctor's name and number and assures her that she will contact the medical practice to discuss her probable eligibility for Medicaid-funded surgery. The counselor adds that she will also fax the doctor an MA-3 form -a Physician's Certification for Abortion-to get the ball rolling.
This news makes Catherine euphoric; she sounds as elated as a lottery winner.
Not so Jaime, who is 6.4 weeks pregnant and says that she needs $450. That fee, for a general anesthetic, is more than the WMF can provide and the counselor tells Jaime to call the clinic and ask the price for local anesthesia. "Not being put to sleep means that the abortion costs less," she counsels. "Please call me back with the new price and we'll take it from there." Will she ever hear back from Jaime? the counselor wonders.
Others requests involve more heartbreak: Incarcerated husbands and boyfriends; women suicidal because of unwanted pregnancies; honors students whose contraceptives failed; women unexpectedly laid off from jobs they thought were secure.
"These women are the experts about their lives," says WMF director Susan Schewel. "Not me. Not us."
Erica, who received $130 from the Fund in April, says that she was surprised that WMF staff respected her decision to have an abortion.
I'm 20 and have two kids already, a one-year-old and a four-year-old. This pregnancy came as a surprise. I thought about having it but was so sick throughout the day that I was unable to function. It was too much on me. The total cost of the abortion was $350, but the clinic gave me a discount to $230. I had $50 already and my job advanced me $50. When the Fund made up the difference, I got the abortion done.
"Receiving help from the Fund was the best thing that happened to me in a long time," Erica adds. "I was overwhelmed and happy to get money when I called."
Steph Herold was a volunteer counselor at the WMF for several years while she was in college. Now an abortion counselor, she describes the work of the Fund as extremely important, if limited. "You have to accept that you are there to help with one aspect of a woman's abortion experience, the cost of the procedure," she said in an email. "Ultimately, though, you play a critical role in her pursuit of reproductive rights."
The WMF believes that reproductive choice is essential, but recognizes that without access, choice is meaningless. By providing direct financial assistance to low-income women, they equalize the playing field, giving poor females the same options that have always been available to their better-heeled peers.
]]>More information about the Women's Medical Fund is available at www.womensmedicalfund.org or by calling 215.564.4070.
The National Network of Abortion Funds can be reached by calling 617.524.6040.
That sentiment has goaded AWC staff to provide a wide range of reproductive health services to women of the Lehigh Valley for 31 years; it has also goaded local anti-abortionists who relentlessly picket, taunt, and pray outside the clinic's doors.
Allentown is one of America's hotspots, locales where a confluence of anti-abortion lawmakers, religious groups, and fanatical individuals come together to make the provision or acquisition of reproductive health services as difficult as possible.
The tactics of Allentown's antis have ranged from "sidewalk counseling," to prayer vigils, home pickets, and Internet harassment. On Good Friday, for example, the AWC was subject to "spoofing." In that incident hundreds of clinics across the U.S. received computer-generated phone calls showing the number of the Allentown Women's Center on their caller ID. "The recipients picked up and got 45 seconds of babies crying and a man asking them if they heard the millions of children they were killing," says AWC Executive Director Jen Boulanger. The AWC subsequently received dozens of calls from irate providers. "When we finally figured out what had happened we got the FBI involved and emailed a warning to clinics affiliated with the National Abortion Federation and the Abortion Care Network," Boulanger says. "The FBI has been great." Nonetheless, a week later the Reproductive Health and Counseling Center in Chester, PA. was similarly "spoofed."
While the spoofing incident was a first, from four to six days a week protesters can be seen and heard at AWC. They've undoubtedly been encouraged by Pennsylvania's many abortion restrictions: The state mandates a 24-hour wait between counseling and surgery; there is a parental consent requirement for girls under 18; and Medicaid pays only for the abortions of women who've been raped or victimized by incest. What's more, says Boulanger, "government officials and police officers in Allentown are afraid of lawsuits."
And perhaps they should be. Since 2004, the antis have brought numerous cases against the AWC, the City of Allentown, its police department, and Boulanger herself. One lawsuit was settled in 2007 by Mayor Ed Pawlowski, a Democrat who graduated from Chicago's Moody Bible Institute and whose resume boasts a stint in college ministry. In that case, Pawlowski paid 13 protesters $10,000 each, essentially caving to allegations that their free speech rights had been impeded. "The Mayor told me that he sees the lawsuits as our fault and thinks we should pay the City $430,000 because that's what the City has spent overall," Boulanger continues "Now, when we ask him for help with the protesters, he says, ‘No. I've already spent $430,000 on you.'"
Even more maddening, she adds, three picketers are presently suing again, once more charging that there is a conspiracy between the clinic, Boulanger, and the City to violate the protester's free speech rights.
A recent Saturday protest gives the lie to these assertions. On a warm, sunny Saturday in mid-April, more than 70 members of Helpers of God's Precious Infants - men, women and children - spent approximately an hour on the sidewalk facing the clinic. The Helpers, a 20-year-old group founded by Brooklyn, NY's Monsignor Philip Reilly, see women's health centers as "places where Christ is re-crucified." Their mission, according to their website, is to "remain with the children during their hour of death." On this particular day, they were led by Allentown Bishop Edward C. Cullen and sang, chanted, and prayed the rosary.
Closer to the AWC entrance, a tiny but vitriolic group accosted women
and their support people as they got close to the building. The six
protesters offered a shrill chorus:
"You won't just kill a baby. You'll die of breast cancer if you have an abortion;
"You're killing all your relationships...They'll all be dead after this;
"Mommy, stop. Mommy, don't kill me;
"Sweetheart, don't you see. People DIE in there;
"Women always regret their abortions. You can change your mind."
"I've tried everything to keep women from killing their babies and am
now going with the selfish angle," says protester John Dunkle. "I tell
her that a woman who kills a baby is three times more likely to die
within a year of the abortion than a woman who carries her child to
term. Why is this? I'm not sure, but it's been proven. Then, 20 years
later, she may get breast cancer. I appeal to her feelings about saving
herself, letting her know that she is harming herself."
Dunkle is no neophyte to the anti-abortion cause. The publisher of a website called SKYP, Stop Killing Young People, he champions the use of force to stop abortion and provides a cheering section for such incarcerated felons as Michael Griffin, James Kopp, and Eric Robert Rudolph. What's more, two years ago Dunkle was permanently enjoined by the Department of Justice from publishing the names, addresses, and photos of providers and patients on his website. DOJ found that SKYP violated FACE by explicitly threatening to harm those listed on the page.
"I was imprisoned dozens of times when I was in Operation Rescue," Dunkle reports. "But we failed. We were chicken. As soon as the government levied fines we backed off. A few people kept at it but they're all in jail." He now contents himself by protesting at two clinics, the AWC and a Planned Parenthood in Redding, PA. "I was a coward," he mumbles, turning from me as a patient walks toward the AWC entrance. "Don't kill your baby," he shrieks.
Clinic escorts do their best to shield patients and their support people, literally wrapping them in a 12-foot tarp to form a barrier as they move toward the entry area.
"This is torment," says Howard, who is at the AWC with his friend Tania. "She's been contemplating this for the past few weeks," he begins. "She doesn't need this badgering.
"Being told, ‘please, mommy, stop,' will always be with me," says patient Chelsea K. "These protesters are a burden on a day when my heart is burdened enough. I feel I'm entitled to do what I feel is right for me."
Volunteer clinic escorts and staff agree, and do whatever they can to support the patients. When the protesters are particularly hostile, or when they grab at people, police are called. "They are very responsive and come right away," says clinic director Boulanger. "The problem is enforcement. Since the financial settlement the police have had to bring all complaints to the City Solicitor, a mayoral appointee, and he decides whether to prosecute. Since the settlement in 2007, he has not prosecuted anyone."
The Solicitor did not respond to calls or emails from this reporter.
Meanwhile, Dunkle and veteran protester Gerald McWilliams picket Boulanger's home every third Sunday. A clinic physician is also picketed at home.
While other staff have not been targeted in this way, they are repeatedly rebuked. Administrator Renee DeLorme, for one, says that she was startled when a protester came up to her on the anniversary of her brother's death and said, "Maybe you should think about your brother when you're killing babies in there." DeLorme is still incredulous. "There was no compassion in her voice. She just dug in. She obviously waited for the anniversary so this was premeditated and it really set me off."
Counselor Katherine Wilgruber came to the AWC as a 19-year-old volunteer. "The first thing I heard was, ‘You're a traitor to your generation." At the time, Wilgruber says that she was totally unaware of anti-abortion tactics. "I was floored that they would reach out and touch patients. Before this, I had no idea people were harassing women. I was horrified."
But like others at the AWC, the presence of the anti-abortionists has cemented Wilgruber's belief in the efficacy of choice and has intensified her commitment to women needing reproductive health care. Boulanger calls it upholding women's human rights.
Heads nod as AWC Assistant Director Sara Faisetty sums what others are feeling. "I have two kids so know that motherhood is the hardest job in the universe. If someone is not ready to be a mother she should have an abortion or put the baby up for adoption. This is not a dental office. The women who come here are dealing with a huge, life altering decision and to be bombarded by people calling them names and misinforming them, fuels my fire. When they scream at me it has the effect of making me more invested in what I do, in choice."
While all concede that time spent dealing with the antis would be
better spent caring for patients, to a one they are resolute: Neither
John Dunkle nor the Helpers of God's Precious Infants will change their
decision to provide reproductive health services to the women who need
them.
Patients' and their supporters' names were changed at their request.
THE AWC has had a Pledge a Picketer program. People can contribute by sending checks to 1409 Union Blvd., Allentown, PA 18109.
There is presently legislation pending to make it a criminal offense to insert someone else's phone number into a caller ID. Contact your legislators about the Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009.
]]>
For example, immediately after Obama's election, Douglas Johnson, Legislative Director of the National Right to Life Committee, called him a "hardcore pro-abortion president." The American Life League dubbed him "one of the most radical pro-abortion politicians ever," and Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life warned that Obama will "force Americans to pay for the killing of innocents." Americans United for Life, the Family Research Council and Operation Save America quickly joined the chorus.
By January 22, the 36th anniversary of Roe, the administration's appointment of numerous outspoken pro-choicers to high level positions provoked fury within the Right. The prominence of Hillary Clinton, Rahm Emmanuel, Ellen Moran and Dawn Johnson, a former NARAL staffer, led Flip Benham of Operation Save America to make a thunderous declaration from a Charlotte, NC podium: "No more will we peacefully co-exist with child killing. We are at war."
And in many places across the country they are, with clinics seeing an uptick of violence, harassment and menace. Since the start of 2009, there has been a fire of unknown origin at a Nebraska clinic and significant property damage at a St. Paul Planned Parenthood caused by a man who drove his SUV into the facility's entryway. What's more, clinics across the country are reporting increasingly vulgar taunts: you're leaving baby road kill, among them.
According to the 2008 National Clinic Violence Survey compiled by the Feminist Majority Foundation [FMF] and released in February 2009, 20 percent of clinics reported severe violence such as blockades, invasions and stalking last year--yes, even before Obama took office--up from 18.4 percent in 2005.
"The anti-abortion extremists lost at the ballot box in November. They lost four anti-choice ballot initiatives and 21 more
members of Congress are now pro-choice," says Kathy Spillar, Executive
Vice President of FMF. "In response, the antis have issued a call for a
return to the streets and there has been intensified activity. The fear
is always there that some will see this as a call to violence. This
means we're always on guard. We're already seeing that clinics that
have long been tortured are
experiencing escalated activity."
Hotspots abound: Allentown, PA; Birmingham, AL; Bridgeport, CT; Bryan, TX; Charlotte, NC; Cherry Hill, NJ; Fargo, ND; Jacksonville, Fl; Madison, WI; McAllen, TX; Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, PA; and Wichita KS, to name a smattering.
"We know that political losses provoke anti-abortion extremists to retaliate, so clinics need to increase awareness," adds Vicki Saporta, President and CEO of the National Abortion Federation. Like others in this field, Saporta can't forget the eight medical workers and escorts who were murdered on Bill Clinton's watch, the heyday of Operation Rescue, the Army of God and The Lambs of Christ, or the irony of relative calm at abortion clinics during the administrations of the Presidents Bush.
NAF also understands that law enforcement is key in keeping the peace. In places where police respond quickly, stopping infractions against patients and staff--whether through locally passed ordinances or by invoking the federal FACE Act, applicable in all 50 states, and prohibiting the use of force, obstruction, or threats to keep patients from obtaining, or staff from providing, reproductive health care--the antis tend to be law abiding, Saporta says. In places where the police turn their heads, the antis push the envelope.
Pittsburgh is a case in point. "Right after the election we saw a small upsurge in anti-abortion activity," Claire Keyes, former Director of the Allegheny Reproductive Health Center, begins. "But since the inauguration, things have gotten measurably worse. There's been an increase in picketing by students from Franciscan University in Ohio. On Saturdays there are 60-plus protesters and there's been an increase in screaming and aggression. We don't have a parking lot so people park on the street. The antis have surrounded cars, trapping the women inside, and in several cases the antis jumped into vehicles and touched or grabbed at them. The police were called but so far they don't seem to be responding appropriately."
Keyes is particularly incensed because a Pittsburgh city law bars protesters from closing in on patients and mandates a 15-foot buffer zone at clinic doors. But it takes police action to ensure enforcement. "Past experience tells me that once the police get tougher, the protesters generally hang back and get more compliant. They're like little kids who push until they are disciplined," Keyes adds.
Elizabeth Barnes, Executive Director of the Philadelphia Women's Center, admits that she anticipated an upswing in harassment following Obama's win. "When the pendulum swung in the direction of protecting women's rights, we expected something," she says. Her expectations were met when, on the Saturday following Obama's victory, staff arrived to find that two men-caught on tape but never identified-had sprayed foam insulation into the facility, delaying its opening for 90 minutes. This was not a one-shot event; that same month the clinic was blockaded and staff have since documented an increase in disruptive hollering, trespassing and overall annoyance. "The way the antis are reacting has changed," Barnes says. "They're taking more liberties, pressing the boundaries of legal, civil protest."
Talks with police have led to promises of better law enforcement, but Barnes has yet to see results. "We're not to a point where the FACE law is being followed," she shrugs.
In addition, 40 Days for Life have taken their road show to countless cities since their founding in 2004 and are pledging increased activism throughout the U.S., Canada, Australia and Northern Ireland beginning in Spring 2009. The group purports to offer "prayerful witness to the evil in our midst" and operates outside targeted clinics 24/7 for their six-week protests. "They don't physically bar women from going in," says Tammi Kromenaker, Director of the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, a facility that has been twice bombarded by 40 Days activists. "But they are intimidating. We continually talk to staff and patients about safety and never let our guard down."
Yet despite the never-ending need for vigilance -- and the never-ending fear of an out-of-control anti-abortion presence outside clinic doors--Kromenaker and other providers are pleased that Obama is in office. "I'm happy that he repealed the Global Gag Rule and am cautiously optimistic about him," Kromenaker says. "Clinics feel like we can finally breathe a sigh of relief on the national level."
That said, providers are strategizing about ways to be proactive and protect and expand women's access to reproductive healthcare. Some are pushing for the federal Task Force on Violence Against Women's Healthcare Organizations -- active during the 1990s-to become more involved in stopping illegal activities.
"Eric Holder was in Janet Reno's office when FACE passed," says the Feminist Majority's Kathy Spillar. "He was there when the Federal Marshalls were send to clinics after the murders in Pensacola. Thanks to the Task Force, clinics have had an ongoing relationship with the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Department of Justice and there were good responses in Birmingham, AL and Jackson, MS. In those cities the US Attorneys got injunctions against the antis due to intense harassment and threats." FMF, NAF and other advocates are heartened by this precedent, and are pushing for a reinvigorated Task Force to ensure that all levels of law enforcement use the tools at their disposal to maintain clinic calm-and punish those who violate the law.
As important as it is for the feds to take a firm stance in support of Roe, other activists are taking a different tack, creating videos documenting anti-choice harassment for eventual posting on YouTube and Facebook.
The project, called BASTA! ENOUGH! Stop Sidewalk Bullying at Women's Clinics, is the brainchild of the Abortion Care Network. "When people read about bullying at clinics, their eyes glaze over. It's old news," says Pittsburgh's Claire Keyes. "People don't realize how dangerous the situation is. These protesters are so aggressive. Things can easily escalate because people don't want someone screaming in their faces or jumping into their cars. Putting pictorials and audios on YouTube and Facebook will show the public what's really going on."
Providers are also paying close attention to state legislation. Since
they believe that federal laws restricting choice are unlikely under
Obama, they expect state lawmakers who oppose choice to seize the moment. Already, bills to curtail reproductive options have been introduced in Arizona, Kansas, North Dakota and Tennessee.
For more information, check out www.abortioncarenetwork.org.
]]>
Anti-abortion zealots have long contended that abortion is unsafe and have pushed state legislatures to impose burdensome requirements on providers. These requirements, in effect in nearly half the country, are more stringent than those imposed on other outpatient medical practices.
Critics say that the laws are essentially a game of gotcha and have done little to improve patient care or reduce surgical risk. Instead, since abortion is safe--only 0.3 percent of abortion patients require hospitalization for post-operative complications--they argue that the laws have less to do with protecting women's health and more to do with limiting reproductive choices. Statistics from the Guttmacher Institute bear this out: The number of abortion providers in the U.S. dropped from 2900 in 1982 to 1787 in 2005, at least in part because of TRAP laws.
"The anti's strategy has been to allow abortion to remain legal, but to make it unavailable," says Bonnie Scott Jones, Deputy Director of Domestic Programs at the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights. "Their goal is to make abortion so difficult to obtain it's not really an option. They've also worked to make it more difficult to be an abortion provider than any other kind of doctor. TRAP laws work as a disincentive to becoming part of, or remaining in, the abortion field."
The laws fall into three categories: Licensing, hospitalization, and staffing/patient care. And they run the gamut, from the common-sensical to the illogical and impractical.
Take South Carolina where the law requires six air changes per hour in the recovery room and mandates that there be no grass or weeds near clinics or medical offices where pregnancies are terminated. Arizona requires MDs performing abortions to do gonorrhea and Chlamydia tests on every patient, a practice, providers say, that usurps a physician's ability to judge what measures are necessary. It also drives abortion fees up by $30-$40 per procedure.
In Missouri, a presently-enjoined law requires doctors who perform five or more first-trimester terminations a month to convert their offices into ambulatory surgery centers. Among the requirements: Hallways must be six feet wide, doorways must be 44 inches across, and the recovery room must have at least four beds.
These restrictions, if upheld, will put Dr. Allen Palmer, the only private physician performing abortions in the Show Me state, out of business. "Dr. Palmer does a full range of gynecological services," says attorney Bonnie Scott Jones. "He works out of a regular doctor's office. It would cost him in excess of $1 million to turn it into a surgical center. If we lose the case he will retire because abortions are enough of his business that without them he has no practice. This is a man, a family gynecologist, who sees the daughters of patients he treated 20 years ago."
In addition to the law's singling out of abortion providers, and not, say, those performing gastric bypasses or liposuction, Jones is further incensed that there is no grandfather clause built into the Missouri law. "You can't increase hall widths in existing buildings," she says. "Most laws that change zoning or construction standards only apply to new construction or massive renovations and wave in facilities that already exist. Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act don't apply retroactively."
Texas is an example of what happens without grandfathering protections. When TRAP laws were passed to require clinics performing abortions after 16 weeks to become ambulatory surgery centers, the availability of care plummeted. "In 2003 there were more than 20 providers doing abortions at or after 16 weeks," Jones reports. "After the law took effect in 2004 there were none." While the number of licensed second trimester providers has begun to creep up -- Jones says there were four in 2007 -- in a state the size of Texas the unmet need is likely enormous.
TRAP laws have also impacted the way Diane Derzis, owner of New Woman All Women Health Care -- a Birmingham, Alabama, clinic that was bombed by Eric Robert Rudolph in 1998 -- does business. After a nurse at Birmingham's Summit Medical Center erred in determining the gestational age of a fetus in 2006, newly-passed TRAP laws gave the state greater power to regulate abortion. Although Summit was subsequently closed, Health inspectors increased surveillance of the state's six remaining providers. "We had investigators come to the clinic four times in 2007," Derzis says. "All visits are unannounced and they always barge in when patients are inside. They take charts out of the clinic and copy them, which they have an absolute right, under the law, to do."
You pick your battles, Derzis shrugs. Nonetheless, she becomes irate when she speaks about inspectors observing abortions. "We've had to ask patients, ‘Do you have a problem with a Department of Health observer in the OR?' Most say ‘no,' but I still don't think inspectors have any business in surgical procedure rooms."
June Ayers, owner and Director of Reproductive Health services in Montgomery has, like Derzis, been on the receiving end of the Alabama Health Department's probing. "For about five years we had a verbal agreement with an emergency physician," she begins. "When the Health Department called him he said he could no longer do back-up for us because he did not want to be bothered by the Health Department. The inspectors closed us down immediately, suspending our license for six weeks. We'd never had a deficiency before in 28 years of operation. I made arrangements with another physician to provide back-up within two weeks but they refused to re-open the clinic. It wasn't just that we couldn't do abortions. We couldn't do pregnancy tests, give out contraceptives, or even do paperwork. We're a small clinic, seeing about 1200 women a year. From a clinical and monetary standpoint, the whole thing was a nightmare."
Worse, at meetings to discuss re-opening, the state attorney told Ayers that since new regulations were about to be promulgated she needed to agree, in advance, that RHS would abide by them. If Ayers refused she understood that the clinic would remain shuttered.
"The new standards of care require our doctors to be certified by a disinterested physician saying that he or she is qualified to perform abortions," Ayers says. "These are already licensed MDs who have to find someone to stick his or her neck out and do this unnecessary paperwork once a year."
In addition, a "Did You Know?" bill presently requires Alabama clinics to provide a resource guide to all abortion patients. The booklet lists services for women, children and families, including information about adoption and abortion alternatives. "The law says that the only people who can hand the brochure to patients are licensed psychologists, sociologists, RNs, or MDs. My counselor, who has worked at the clinic for 10 years, is not qualified to distribute it," says an exasperated Ayers.
"These laws are supposed to provide a higher standard of care," she continues. "But that's not what happens. TRAP laws do not elevate care or help patients. They're punitive, forcing clinics to provide services under adverse conditions. It's why Alabama is down from 10 clinics to six. When it becomes too difficult to provide services, clinics close."
That, says CRR's Bonnie Scott Jones, is the point. Since the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, which weakened the test of unconstitutionality for abortion law to "undue burden," "the antis have been testing the limits to see how onerous regulations can be and still be upheld by the courts."
Onerous, of course, is subjective, but clinicians and pro-choice activists call TRAP regulations unnecessary, even galling. "There was a horrific death of an abortion patient in Arizona in 1998, a clear example of criminal medical malpractice," Jones says. "But like in Alabama, because the incident was abortion related, it provided the impetus to pass really bad TRAP laws. Malpractice happens and it always needs to be addressed, but TRAP laws just add fuel to the fire of anti-abortion activism."
The National Abortion Federation, a professional association for providers, agrees. According to their website, "TRAP bills stigmatize and burden abortion providers...By implying that abortion clinics are dangerous and in need of special regulation, such bills promote an unfounded fear that abortion is unsafe. Abortion has an outstanding safety record. These regulations create a burden for small outpatient clinics."
You can almost hear the antis cheering.
]]>By the mid-1990's anti-abortion activists wanted in on the trend. Randy Harris, a virulently anti-choice county commissioner from Ocala, Florida, is considered the mastermind of the idea to have state DMVs collect funds to promote adoption over abortion. His plan was simple -- have the state agency sell "Choose Life" tags for $22 above the regular cost of a license plate. The extra money would then go to non-profit adoption agencies, so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers, and maternity homes with the sole purpose of encouraging the unhappily pregnant to put their progeny up for adoption.
Harris galvanized supporters by arguing that since only one percent of women deemed "abortion vulnerable" by CPCs gave their babies to adoptive families, more needed to be done to promote this option. And doing more, he reasoned, required money for the medical care, shelter, food and living expenses of those giving birth. How simple it would be, he cajoled, if people bought vanity tags to promote the cause.
Harris' three-year campaign was victorious and Florida's then-governor, Jeb Bush, authorized the plates in 1999. By 2000 bright yellow tags with a childlike drawing of a boy and girl -- the female is distinguished by longer hair and a red bow atop her head -- and a Choose Life message were selling like hotcakes. By the end of 2007, the state had raised $5.5 million and the idea of selling anti-abortion tags had spread to 17 states; in less than eight years, more than $8.4 million was collected for anti-abortion adoption centers and explicitly Christian CPCs across the country.
No comparable pro-choice plates exist -- which clearly pleases anti-abortionists. At the same time, Florida anti-choicers acknowledge that the tags have not been as effective in promoting adoption as Harris originally expected. While figures for the number of babies placed for adoption pre-and-post tags are unavailable, Russ Amerling, Publicity Coordinator of Choose Life, Inc., a national network established to promote the plates and help anti-abortion activists bring them to their states, admits that the program has hit numerous bureaucratic roadblocks.
"The problem," Amerling begins, "is not the exclusive focus on adoption; it's the distribution of funds." Indeed, money collected by the DMV has been accumulating far faster than it is being spent. "In Marion County, we get $30,000 a year which is distributed to qualified agencies that promote, support or enhance adoption services," Amerling continues. "There is no paperwork, no contract signing. The county auditor goes in every year and confirms that the money is being used in accordance with the statute. That's it. In other counties it's not like that. Many county commissioners don't distribute the money because there is so much red tape that agencies don't even apply for it. It's too burdensome. The funds are not being spent because barriers are being erected that keep it from being spent."
This means that the money raised by Florida's sale of Choose Life license plates isn't doing what its promoters say it is -- helping women place their babies with adoptive families. Instead, the funds -- approximately $200,000 according to news-press.com -- languish in state bank accounts.
Sydna Masse, a former Focus on the Family staffer and founder of the anti-abortion counseling group, Ramah International, says that this outcome was predictable. Unlike Amerling, who champions Florida's adoption-only bent, Masse believes that "the state made eligibility for funding too restrictive. It's not for any woman choosing life. It's only for women choosing adoption." Since most women coming into a CPC want to keep their babies or have an abortion -- not give them away -- she believes that agencies that might be eligible for funding see no point in applying since they know they'll rarely be able to use it. She is also perplexed by Choose Life Inc.'s refusal to push for a loosening of the rules. At the same time, she is heartened that anti-abortionists in other states have learned from Florida's errors.
Masse hails Mississippi as the country's most successful license tag program. Terri Herring of the Pro-Life America Network (PLAN) for Mississippi says that her group used Florida as a model but wanted to fund more than just adoption. While the 33 agencies currently funded by tag revenue -- over $1 million has been raised since 2002 -- encourage women to relinquish their babies, they also fund services for those who want to keep their offspring.
Janet Thomas of Choose Life, Mississippi oversees the quarterly distribution of funds to qualifying groups and says that in the fourth quarter of 2007 grants ranged from a low of $320 to $4,575. This money was used to promote adoption, says Thomas, "as well as for women who needed pampers and baby clothes. It was also used for pregnancy tests, sonograms, or whatever else a pregnancy center wanted to use it for including outreach on abstinence or that type of thing."
Thanks to a sophisticated "License to Live" ad campaign on television and in statewide print media, Mississippi tag sales remain brisk.
For their part, pro-choice legal challenges to the Choose Life tags -- including a 2005 Supreme Court petition that the Court rejected -- have been largely unsuccessful. Although a 2004 Circuit Court decision found that having a Choose Life tag violated the First Amendment unless pro-choice tags were available, other Circuit Courts have sided with the antis. An Oklahoma case, brought by the Oklahoma Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice Education Fund (ORC), will be argued and decided in late 2008. Arguments that money is going to overtly religious groups with an overtly religious agenda have similarly fallen flat.
Janet Crepps, Deputy Director of Domestic Legal Programs at the Center for Reproductive Rights, is representing ORC and argues that the tags are objectionable on multiple levels. First, she says, is the issue of the state favoring one political viewpoint over another. "If they're going to give anyone access to the license plate forum, they should give access to all viewpoints."
Then there's the question of funding, and where the money collected by the state actually goes. "Crisis Pregnancy Centers have a history of providing women with biased information, and in some instances, misleading women about their pregnancy choices," Crepps continues. "No public funds should go to CPCs for any reason. It's a misuse of public money to fund organizations that are both religious and political. It's particularly outrageous that states give money to CPCs when these same states often refuse to provide comprehensive sex education or to provide adequate funding for family planning services."
These criticisms don't faze Russ Amerling or his Choose Life, Inc. colleagues. "We've learned from Florida and have now drafted a model bill," he says. "The ideal is to send money collected by the sale of tags directly to a non-profit Choose Life group, sidestepping county government altogether. That agency can then distribute funds to help abortion-vulnerable women choose adoption."
Numerous states have rejected the Choose Life tags and even in states where they've been approved, sales are often slow. Connecticut, for example, has sold only 550; Hawaii just 672; and Indiana 804. But the issue isn't going away any time soon: bills to authorize their sale are pending in six state legislatures and the issue is being litigated in five others.
]]>