Emily May talks about fighting back against street harassment. Amanda reviews “12th and Delaware”, and a segment on how the battle for immigrant rights intersects with the battle for reproductive justice.

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12th and Delaware

Russell Pearce lying about “anchor babies”

Lindsay Graham wants to repeal the 14th Amendment

If you lose Lou Dobbs, you know it’s crazy racist

Baby Baiting

More wingnuttery from Phyllis Schlafly

On this episode of Reality Cast, the founder of Hollaback NYC will be on to talk about her website and new iPhone app.  Also, I review the film “12^th and Delaware”, and a segment on the right wing obsession with repealing the 14^th amendment.

This story might be the dumbest bit of abstinence-only nonsense I’ve heard of in a long time.

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This is like a double fail time warp phenomenon, both because it uses the kind of virtual reality suit people quit thinking was the next big thing 15 years ago, and because they’re still invested in the idea that the only reason a young woman might want to have sex is because she wants to prove something to a young man.  It’s like they think the acknowledgement of female sexual desire will make all their pet theories fall to hell.  They would, I think, be right about that.

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Last week, I interviewed Rachel Grady, one of the two directors of the documentary “12^th and Delaware”, about a crisis pregnancy center and the abortion clinic that it sits across the street from.  It aired on August 2^nd on HBO, and if you missed it, it’s available from HBO On Demand.  Hopefully, it will eventually be released on DVD.  I thought I’d do a review of the movie here.  I saw it a number of weeks ago at a NARAL screening here in New York, and really enjoyed it.  It didn’t really tell me anything that I didn’t know, but then again I spend much of my time deeply immersed in this issue.  For most people, I think this movie can really be a revelation.  And even if you do know the general parameters of what happens in crisis pregnancy centers and abortion clinic, it’s still enlightening to have a glimpse into the very real lives of the people who work there, and the women with unintended pregnancies who find their bodies have suddenly become the focal point of a massive political debate. 

The movie is evenly divided between the first half at the crisis pregnancy center, and the second half at the abortion clinic.  The crisis pregnancy center is roughly what you’d expect—filled up with people who seem to have no lives of their own, and who aren’t limited by the niceties of honesty or morality when it comes to badgering women to carry pregnancies to term.  Lying is a major theme. They litter the waiting room with brochures that lie to women about horrible things will happen to them if they get abortions.  Like this pressure they put on a woman named Victoria.

• Delaware 1 *

The so-called counselor bribed Victoria into hearing this blather by buying her lunch from McDonald’s. Almost nothing she says to Victoria is even remotely honest.  She tells her condoms don’t work.  She tells her that every woman regrets her abortion, when in reality most women are simply relieved.  But this lie about how having a baby will make an abuser not abusive?  That’s not just lying, that’s super dangerous lying.  In reality, domestic abuse tends to get worse, not better, during pregnancy and childbirth, because the abuser is reassured that his victim can’t leave as easily.

The good news is Victoria wasn’t having it.

• Delaware 2 *

Of course, she’s 24 years old and has two kids already.  When they lay into someone who has fewer resources, and is less mature by virtue of simply still being a kid of 15, then things get ugly. 

• Delaware 3 *

The 15-year-old has the baby, and it’s unclear by the end of the movie if the crisis pregnancy center’s hard sell had much to do with it, or if it’s just that she was too young to get any help in getting an abortion.  She’s not particularly talkative.  She mostly just seems resigned and sad. 

One of the scenes that struck a lot of viewers the most, especially as this was filmed after the murder of Dr. George Tiller, was the way the requisite angry middle aged guy was happy to show the filmmakers how he stalks the doctor who performs the abortions. 

• Delaware 4 *

As I noted on the podcast last week, the most striking thing about the movie is that, without a bit of editorializing and with everyone being filmed agreeing that they were shown as they really are, you still get this enormous contrast between the mean-spirited, lying folks on the anti-choice side, and the kindly, if occasionally bewildered pro-choice folks.  The clinic manager Candace is a particularly warm woman.  Earlier in the film, we see the anti-choice counselor lecturing about how the clinic practically forces abortion on patients.  Then we see the reality.

• Delaware 5 *

I related strongly to Candace, because like me, what really gets her super angry is how happily and easily anti-choicers will lie.  And she spends a lot of her time dealing with lies they spread, because her patients often wander into the crisis pregnancy center on accident, and then show up at the abortion clinic full of questions about the lies they heard. 

• Delaware 6 *

The most unnerving is when they tell women individual lies, like say, about how far along they are. 

• Delaware 7 *

And of course, she is 10 weeks.  That’s one of their strategies, because they want you to believe you have more time to decide than you do.  The hope is that when you go in, you’ll think you’re at say, 10 weeks, only to find that you’re 13 or 15 weeks, and now you can’t get the abortion at home.

So, check out the movie if you can.  And show it to someone who needs to know how serious this issue really is.

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insert interview

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The frenzy of anti-immigration sentiment is something that falls outside of the usual scope of this podcast, but for one aspect, which is currently on the fringes.  The assault on what anti-immigration folks call “anchor babies”, their slur term for children born to immigrant parents in the U.S., children that have citizenship by virtue of being born on American soil.  The myth is that immigrant women come to the U.S. illegally, give birth, and then exploit their child’s citizenship to stay here.  The reality is that merely having a citizen child confers no real rights, especially since that child can’t sponsor family member until he or she turns 21.  In reality, families just get broken up if the parents are deported.  

Stripping native born citizens of their citizenship because their parents are immigrants is forbidden by the Constitution, but that hasn’t stopped people like Arizona state senator Russell Pearce from suggesting that states try to do it anyway. 

• babies 1 *

He’s just delusional, of course.  The notion that the 14^th amendment doesn’t confer citizenship on native born children is belied by actually reading the damn thing. First sentence of it states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”  There’s nothing to contradict that in it.  This whole thing is just more right wing nuttiness, on par with Birtherism or conspiracy theories about fluoride.  But this issue won’t go away, because it feeds off both racism and misogyny.  And it’s about a bunch of white dudes claiming the right to control who gives birth, and when and where she does it.

Because it’s at the cross section of asserting ownership over female bodies and anti-immigrant hysteria, the whole issue of revoking the birthright citizenship is too juicy for many conservative politicians to ignore.  Senator Lindsay Graham, for instance, jumped on the bandwagon.

• babies 2 *

Realistically speaking, then, he’s talking about criminalizing child-bearing if you’re the “wrong” kind of person.  This has always been the flip side of anti-abortion politics.  It’s not just about forcing some women to have babies, but it’s also about forcing others not to by threatening them with jail of sterilizing them against their will.  And who is subject to what kind of force has always been determined by race or ethnicity.  When it comes to immigrant women, Graham doesn’t seem to care that there’s a logical disconnect between his opposition to legal abortion and contraception access and his desire to criminalize women who do have babies.  Graham doesn’t worry about creating structures where some women literally cannot do anything legal with their own reproductive systems.

Even Lou Dobbs, of all people, had to draw the line, even though he and Meghen Kelly didn’t flinch from racist language to discuss the issue.

• babies 3 *

For further reading, I recommend Robin Templeton’s piece in The Nation about this issue, and how the hysteria over it is creating problems for maternal health, infant health, and the overall health care system.

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, no Phyllis Schlafly was always like that edition.  As in, you can’t blame her for the wingnutty things she says just because she’s getting older.  She’s always been a crazy radical misogynist.  But here’s the latest example:

• schlafly *

There are many WTFs in what she said, including her crazy notion that most unmarried women are on welfare. But what I liked is how she conflated what she calls “illegitimate” children with kicking your husband out.  Even in the world of crazy right wingers, as long as the woman’s married when she has the baby, the baby gets labeled legitimate.  Even if there is indeed a divorce down the road.  But don’t let that distract you from Schlafly’s main point, which is that women who don’t have men in their homes to control them are this big, scary threat.