Crossposted with permission from Dissent.

This is not a famous picture, but it should be. Forty years ago, the March 22, 1973 issue of Jet magazine featured Dr. T.R.M. Howard and a staffer attending a prostrate female patient on its cover, all under a yellow headline: “Legal Abortion: Is it Genocide or Blessing in Disguise?” This remarkable image reportedly depicts preparations for one of the first legal abortions in Illinois (though it could also have been staged).

Just two months after the Supreme Court legalized abortion in the Roe v. Wade decision and a week after Illinois OKed the procedure on its soil, Dr. Theodore Roosevelt Mason (or T.R.M.) Howard began performing legal abortions at his Friendship Medical Center in Chicago. According to the accompanying feature story, Black and white women alike jammed the clinic’s waiting room and phone lines. Outside, Jesse Jackson—once a protégée of Howard’s—picketed and called abortion Black genocide.

In the wake of polarizing national debates about abortion, it’s difficult to imagine that a national magazine would feature an abortion procedure on its cover. And with clinic bombings, harassment, and the assassinations of abortion providers, it is equally hard to imagine many abortion providers would opt for this level of exposure.

But images have long been the currency of both the pro-choice and anti-abortion movements. In 1973, Ms. magazine published the searing image of the naked, kneeling body of twenty-eight-year-old Gerri Santoro, who died from a self-induced abortion in a Norwich, Connecticut hotel room in 1964. The Silent Scream, a 1984 film partly funded by the National Right to Life Committee, claimed to show a fetus writhing in pain during an abortion and became a staple in the arsenal of anti-abortion visual arguments. Earlier this decade, billboards showing winsome Black children towered over streets in Atlanta and New York, blaring messages such as, “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” With ever more advanced ultrasound technology, pictures of fetuses are now stock images in the fight to keep abortion legal and accessible; in many states, ultrasounds are required viewing in pre-abortion counseling blatantly designed to dissuade women from terminating their pregnancies.

Advocates on both sides of the abortion debate know that images are worth far more than the proverbial thousand words. The 1973 Jet cover image, in particular, operates on multiple registers. First, we can’t underestimate the impact of the prime real estate given to this image. Jet magazine has circulated millions of copies and occupied a place of pride in Black homes, barbershops, and newsstands since its founding in 1951.

Nor can we, in our current climate, underestimate the power of showing a Black abortion provider. When abortion opponents point fingers at what they call a racist abortion industry targeting communities of color, the providers they imagine are white. The most notable exception is not an heartening or representative one: Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia provider who was found guilty of three counts of murder on Monday. (Though multiple parties expressed concern about his methods, his facility’s sanitary conditions, and its higher-than-usual complication rates, his clinic continually used untrained staff, performed abortions after legal limits, and generally functioned as a last-resort house of horrors for poor women with advanced pregnancies.)

Jet also published brief blurbs about Black women’s abortion-related deaths and the trials of Black health-care providers accused of performing illegal abortions before 1973. The December 16, 1954 issue’s medical news column mentioned legal action against Los Angeles chiropractor Edmund George Peters, who had previously served a six-month sentence on the county road camp for an abortion charge, and Dr. Henry Landry, an Alexandria, Virginia physician suspected in an abortion-related fatality. (Howard himself was brought up on multiple charges but not convicted.)

But the above photograph wordlessly counters the predominant imagery of pre-Roe abortions. This is not the makeshift and blood-spattered back-alley room in a shady neighborhood. Howard appears in a sparkling white lab coat, and his helper is decked out in scrubs and a hairnet. They seem the picture of medical efficiency and professionalism, not untrained shysters. The image captures a moment of social, legal, and medical transition: the movement of abortion from the often-unsafe backrooms to the regulated clinic.

The Jet cover and article also mark Howard’s own transition into legal provision of abortion care, but the magazine doesn’t directly acknowledge Howard’s long history of providing illegal but safe abortions pre-Roe. Before Heather Booth co-founded the Chicago clandestine abortion service commonly known as Jane in the late 1960s, she helped a friend seek an abortion through a group that provided medical services to civil rights activists; they referred the young woman to a doctor who was almost certainly Howard. When Howard parted ways with Jane, he joined forces with the Clergy Consultation Service, a referral service through which he performed hundreds, maybe thousands, of abortions.

Howard is one of the most significant civil rights leaders to fly under the history radar—though his story is well-documented in Black Maverick, a biography by husband-and-wife team David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito. As an insurance salesman in Mississippi, Howard gave young (future civil rights activist) Medgar Evers his first job. In 1951, he founded the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, a civil rights organization that called for economic boycotts before the Montgomery bus boycotts. He packed civil rights rallies with his fiery rhetoric, and some anointed him a civil rights leader to watch. The Klan watched him, too, especially as he led efforts to uncover the truth behind the murder of fourteen-year-old lynching victim Emmett Till; he enraged J. Edgar Hoover with his full-throated condemnation of a U.S. government that half-heartedly investigated Deep South violence—when it deigned to investigate at all. And, finally, Howard led the segregated, Black National Medical Association when the group began clamoring for hospital integration.

Yet Howard didn’t just belong to the civil rights movement. Like Black physicians and midwives before him, he belonged also to the abortion rights movement. In his inimitable and controversial way, Howard pointed out in Jet that abortion could be safe, legal, and even convenient; he proposed the “lunch hour abortion”—in which a woman could have a complications-free procedure and return to her desk in a jiffy. He countered Black militants’ charges that abortion is “Black genocide” with a broader social critique: “You see, genocide takes many forms. A malnourished body caused by a lack of food is genocide. A slum apartment infested with rats and poison paint peeling is genocide. Bad school which plunge [sic] Blacks into a dismal economic plight is genocide.”

It seems that nobody likes an inveterate and unapologetic boundary crosser. Howard, who died in 1976, isn’t in the canon of civil rights leadership, probably because he differed with movement heroes such as Thurgood Marshall, was a notorious philanderer—and provided abortions (and unapologetically made money from them). Yet neither is he remembered in the standard pro-choice narratives.

Dr. T.R.M. Howard was many things—entrepreneur, physician, and a civil rights rabble-rouser. For the pro-choice activist, he is a loud reminder that all abortion activism did not emerge from a mainly white mainstream feminism. For Black communities, often labeled as staunchly anti-choice, Howard’s history points to how central African Americans have always been to the fight to maintain reproductive freedom. For a civil rights movement that has focused on “big men” and still far too few women, Howard’s career demonstrates how civil rights and women’s rights can and did converge.

Image: JET Magazine

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The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Arkansas, and the Center for Reproductive Rights appeared in court Friday to ask a federal judge to prevent an Arkansas law that would ban abortions starting at 12 weeks of pregnancy from taking effect. Following arguments, Judge Susan Webber ruled from the bench and temporarily blocked the law from taking effect, ruling that the ban cannot take effect while the legal challenge to the law proceeds.

The law was passed in March when the Arkansas legislature overrode Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto. The ban is set to take effect on August 16.

“This law is an extreme example of how lawmakers around the country are trying to limit a woman’s ability to make the best decision for herself and her family,” Talcott Camp, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a statement. “Far from safeguarding women’s health, these laws are designed with one purpose—to eliminate all access to abortion care.”

The ruling came just two days after Judge Webber rejected efforts by the state to dismiss the legal challenge on a variety of grounds, including arguments by state attorneys that doctors and patients must wait for the ban to take effect before they have sufficient legal challenge to sue. “We have asked the court to stop this dangerous law from going into effect,” Holly Dickson, legal director for the ACLU of Arkansas, said in a statement. “This law is aimed at allowing politicians to insert themselves into deeply personal and private medical care and decisions for which they should have no say.”

The Arkansas abortion law is one of the most extreme in the nation, surpassed only by the recently enacted North Dakota measure banning abortion as early as six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant.

“Today’s decision ensures that the women of Arkansas will remain protected from this blatant unconstitutional assault on their health and fundamental reproductive rights,” Nancy Northrup, president and CEO at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement. “Such an extreme ban on abortion would have immediate and devastating consequences for women in Arkansas, especially those who could not afford to travel out of state to access reproductive health care. We are confident that the court will continue to uphold women’s constitutional right to make their own decisions about their pregnancies and ultimately strike down this harmful law permanently.”

The physicians are represented by Stephanie Toti, senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, Talcott Camp at the ACLU, and Bettina Brownstein and Holly Dickson with the ACLU of Arkansas.

Image: State of Arkansas

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Days after Dr. Kermit Gosnell was convicted of first-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, anti-choice groups Operation Rescue and Life Dynamics are drawing attention to a Houston abortion clinic where they say the “next Gosnell” has been practicing. In response, the lieutenant governor of Texas has launched a new investigation into the doctor, who was already investigated earlier this year, with no evidence of wrongdoing found at that time.

The groups accuse Dr. Douglas Karpen of performing illegal abortions, of ending the life of viable fetuses, and of improperly charging patients for services. They have made public video testimony from former clinic workers and an undercover video that one former employee “smuggled out” of the clinic. In addition, former employee Deborah Edge wrote an opinion article for LifeNews.com supporting the allegations and discussing how she left the clinic with the help of former abortion clinic worker turned anti-choice speaker and activist Abby Johnson.

The complaints against Karpen were investigated and dismissed earlier this year by the Texas Medical Board, which noted in a February 8 letter provided by Operation Rescue that “there was insufficient evidence to prove that a violation of the Medical Practices Act occurred. Specifically, this investigation determined that Dr. Karpen did not violate the laws connected with the practice of medicine and there is no evidence of inappropriate behavior.”

Amid pressure from abortion opponents following the public release of the allegations against Karpen, the state has opened the case back up for further review. According to one blogger for the Houston Chronicle, “Harris County District Attorney Mike Anderson’s office finally contacted [Operation Rescue's Troy Newman] this morning, after [the Operation Rescue report] was published and hundreds of people called Anderson’s office.”

The Christian Post reports that Republican Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst has announced a new investigation into Karpen’s clinic and procedures, saying Harris County authorities would be looking into the accusations.

Image:

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Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, more than a million people have fled, causing a refugee crisis of enormous magnitude. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), upwards of 3,000 Syrians a day have registered as asylum seekers in neighboring Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey. The lion’s share of these refugees—between 300,000 and 400,000—have ended up in Jordan, with approximately 30 percent of the total settling in the Al Zaatari refugee camp and 70 percent moving into host communities throughout the country. UNFPA further estimates that three-quarters of the refugees are women and children.

By all accounts, displaced Syrians are encountering grim conditions, with overt violence, supply shortages, and filth more the rule than the exception.

The Al Zaatari refugee camp, administered by the UN High Commission for Refugees, was built to accommodate 60,000 people, but there may be as many as 120,000 refugees there now, according to the New York Times. Yifat Susskind, executive director of MADRE, was in Jordan and visited the Al Zaatari camp in mid-April.

“Jordan is a highly functioning state, but it is resource stressed, especially for water,” Susskind told RH Reality Check. “Syrian refugees are putting a huge strain on the population, and tensions have developed. For example, Syria is a beautiful, green country with adequate fresh water, so it does not have a culture of conservation. One of the big issues in the camp is that refugees are protesting the amount of their daily water ration. At the same time, water-strapped Jordanians are beginning to resent camp residents who they perceive as having easy access to all the water they need.”

In addition, Jordanians are fearful that the Syrian influx will inflame already pervasive problems, including deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, and the overgrazing of land.

Even more daunting are safety concerns. Al Zaatari’s toilets are unlit so many woman are terrified to use them at night, and there is a need for more routine health-care services, including basics like adequate access to sanitary pads, and ongoing educational programs for youth. Although UNFPA reports that it provided reproductive health services to more than 3,600 women in the camp during two weeks in early April, Susskind said that there are nonetheless barriers that need to be addressed, among them the distance between the health center and the location of many people’s temporary housing. “The camp is so large that it can take an hour and 15 minutes to walk to the area where services are offered,” she said.

“For women who are in the last months of pregnancy, who are sick, or who have just delivered a baby, this location poses a terrible hardship,” Susskind said. “There has been talk of trying to raise money for a shuttle bus, but this has not yet happened.”

Despite this criticism, Susskind is quick to commend UNFPA for its valiant efforts. Still, as she spoke, she shook her head at the enormity of the issues facing aid workers each day.

Dealing with survivors of sexual trauma or rape is even more problematic, she continued: “We know that rape and domestic violence always increase in times of war and displacement, and we know that many of the women became refugees after being raped or out of fear that sexual violence would be perpetrated against them or their family members.”

She went on, “There is no way to estimate the number or refugees who have been raped or sexually abused, and it is really clear that this is a topic the women won’t talk about. Syrian refugees have a lot of disincentives to keep them from coming forward to talk about these issues. They live in a culture where honor killing is practiced and where the blame and shame of rape is placed exclusively on them.” This means that crisis counseling teams need to be attuned to the signs of trauma that typically appear in survivors, from the inability to bond with a newborn to disassociation to overt clinical depression.

Women Under Siege Director Lauren Wolfe, writing in The Atlantic, calls Syria “a nation of traumatized survivors,” and notes that men as well as women have been violated by government forces and plainclothes militia in a campaign meant to humiliate, intimidate, and ultimately stifle resistance to the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

What’s more, overwrought and fearful families have pushed girls as young as 13 into arranged—some would call them forced—marriages. In more than a few instances, this has unwittingly placed them in the hands of traffickers; in other cases, it has meant moving adolescent girls far from their families, isolating them from everyone they have ever known.

Meanwhile, the number of refugees keeps growing as more and more people opt to leave Syria, on foot and by paying drivers to transport them across borders that may eventually be closed. While humanitarian groups such as Handicap International, the Jordanian Red Crescent, Mercy Corps, and UNICEF are working to provide supplies to this diaspora, the specific needs of women and girls all too often fall through the cracks. Code Pink and MADRE, among other feminist groups, are working to address and meet female needs; they recently teamed up to purchase 350 solar lanterns so that at least some of the women in Al Zaatari can be more relaxed about walking in the camp after dark. They are also fundraising to train midwives to counsel women who show signs of sexual abuse and trauma.

Image: Sadik Gulec / Shutterstock.com

The post Stoking Fire: Addressing the Specific Needs of Female Syrian Refugees appeared first on RH Reality Check.

UPDATE, May 17, 3:35 p.m. EST: Since RH Reality Check published this article, Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, told reporters that he was open to removing the authority to prosecute sex crimes from the chain of command, according to Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for members of the military. That is the remedy that Sen. Kristen Gillibrand’s proposed Military Justice Improvement Act would apply.

Welsh’s remarks put him ahead of many members of Congress; as of May 16, none of the top leaders of either party in the House or Senate had signed on to Gillibrand’s bill. As noted in the article below, Welsh kicked up some dust earlier this month when he blamed the military’s sexual assault crisis on what he called a civilian “hook-up culture.” His newly articulated position on military justice reform also came on the heels of yet another arrest of a military sexual abuse prevention officer, Army Lt. Col. Darren Haas, who was charged with violating a restraining order obtained by his ex-wife.

Pressure is mounting on Capitol Hill for a meaningful answer to the crisis of sexual assault in the U.S. military. In response, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) hosted a press conference Thursday to promote legislation that would remove from the chain of command in the nation’s armed forces the reporting and adjudication of sexual crimes, along with other felonies that are not specifically military in nature.

Last week, the Pentagon released its latest report on sexual assault, and many lawmakers have expressed fury that sexual crimes against active duty members of the armed forces escalated by some 37 percent over the previous year’s estimate. The situation only got worse after the lieutenant in charge of the Air Force’s sexual assault reporting operation was arrested for sexual battery of a civilian, and a subsequent news report revealed several complaints of rape against military recruiters.

While senators and House members, including several Republicans, took the podium to express support for Gillibrand’s proposed bill, leaders of both parties and chambers have yet to sign on to a measure that is sure to meet with fierce resistance among military brass. (See our earlier story on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s remarks on the Gillibrand measure.)

Nonetheless, Gillibrand told RH Reality Check, she hoped to build enough support within the Senate Armed Services Committee to include her proposal in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual law that sets the budget and expenditures, as well as other requirements, for the Department of Defense.

“[T]oo often, these brave men and women find themselves in the fight of their lives not off on some far-away battlefield, but right here on our own soil, within their own ranks and commanding officers, as victims of horrific acts of sexual violence,” Gillibrand said.

Susan Collins, a Republican supporter of Gillibrand’s Military Justice Improvement Act, reiterated her claim that “our women soldiers sometimes have more to fear from their fellow soldiers than from the enemy,” a point she first made at a 2004 hearing on sexual assault in the military, only to have Gen. George Casey interject that he believed her statement to be “absolutely and fundamentally” untrue. (Casey, who went on to become the U.S. Army chief of staff, has since retired from the military.) Collins’ staff passed out excerpts from the transcript of the 2004 hearing.

Gillibrand also introduced her audience to three military veterans who said they suffered punishment from the military when they reported having been the victims of sex crimes perpetrated against them by their comrades.

Jennifer Norris, a former sergeant in the Air Force Reserve, was accompanied to the press conference by a service dog who, she says, assists her with the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) she experiences because of assaults by four different perpetrators during her military career. (You can read her harrowing story here.) Norris’ military career ended, she writes, when her security clearance was revoked for having a PTSD diagnosis. Today she works as a victim advocate at the Military Rape Crisis Center, a non-profit organization that offers support to those who suffer sexual abuse while serving in the military.

As she sat in the front row at the press conference, Norris’ eyes began to overflow with tears, causing Sen. Barbara Boxer, who was then at the podium, to remark, “I hope those are tears of hope.”

Norris affirmed that they were, saying that she was moved because she never thought she’d see the day when such change as that proposed by Gillibrand could take place.

Not that she thinks attitudes have changed all that much at the top. Citing the remarks of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh at a Senate hearing earlier this month, Norris said: “I want to make it clear to Gen. Welsh that blaming a civilian ‘hook-up culture’ for the epidemic does nothing but contribute to victim-blaming—excusing perpetrators—and it belittles the serious nature of these crimes.”

“I’ve pretty much dealt with my own stuff,” Norris told RH Reality Check after the press conference. “It’s the people that I’m working with currently—the reasons [they hesitate to come forward]—that breaks my heart. The same stuff that happened to me all that many years ago is happening to this day. What I would like to say to each and every senator and representative that doesn’t sign onto this bill is: ‘Work one day in my job, and you will hear every day how bad things really are.’”

Also recounting their experiences of sexual assault were former Army sergeant Ayana Harrell and former Navy petty officer Brian Lewis, who said that when he reported having been raped, he was diagnosed with a mental disorder and given a discharge from the service that prevented him from collecting such benefits as those offered under the GI Bill.

Harrell says she was drugged and gang-raped at the Redstone Arsenal Base, became pregnant from the assault, and was determined by the military to have “a personality disorder” after she reported the crime.

The problem of rape culture in the military is not unique to the U.S., but other countries—including the United Kingdom, Israel and Australia—have addressed the problem by removing the reporting and prosecution of such crimes from the chain of command. Too often, victims of sexual assault have suffered retribution for reporting crimes perpetrated against them, especially when the attacks are made by superior officers, while others have seen convictions of their attackers overturned by commanding officers, who currently have that authority.

Yet congressional leaders seem loath to take on military brass. RH Reality Check asked Gillibrand to respond to Sen. Reid’s apparent reluctance to sign on to her bill.

“All of us who support this bill—our job now is to begin to talk to more colleagues,” Gillibrand said, noting that there is no “quick fix” what she called an “epidemic,” as well as a “cultural challenge and structural problem.”

The senator from New York noted that there are other “complementary” measures that may be included in a base mark-up bill, including a proposal by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) that would improve record-keeping of sexual assault complaints, and one co-sponsored by Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) that would provide greater resources to victims.

After the press conference, I asked Anu Bhagwati, a military veteran and executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN), why she thought there was such resistance to removing matters involving sexual assault from the chain of command within the military justice system.

“I think military tradition is something that is hard to change,” Bhagwati said. “We’re talking about a legal structure that has been in place for 250 years, and it has no meaning anymore. We have so many troops who are being harmed by this justice system, or lack-of-justice system, that we need to change it.”

Gillibrand’s allies on this legislation include Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Mazie Hirano (D-HI), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT),and Mike Johanns (R-NE), as well as Reps. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), Dan Benishek (R-MI), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and others.

Image: Adele Stan / RH Reality Check

The post Gillibrand Builds Bipartisan Support for Change of Military Justice Code (UPDATED) appeared first on RH Reality Check.

His Excellency Francisco Roberto Altschul Fuentes
Embassy of El Salvador
1400 16th St., NW, Suite 100
Washington, DC 20036

Dear Ambassador,

We, and the 32,904 undersigned, write to ask that you pass along our names to the office of President Mauricio Funes and the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador in support of the human rights, health and life of Beatriz, whose case is now before the court.

We’re writing to insist that they allow Beatriz’ doctors to perform an abortion to save her life, to say that they must act to spare this young woman with her whole life ahead of her and so much yet to do.

Beatriz is a human being with human rights, and the right to enjoy her future, her freedom, and her family. Denying her life-saving medical care is unacceptable. Act now to allow her doctors do their duty to try and save their patient without fear of imprisonment.

Yours sincerely,

Jodi Jacobson
President, RH Reality Check
Petition to the President and Supreme Court of El Salvador

Emily Logan,
Senior Campaigner, Care2
Save Beatriz’s Life and Allow Her Abortion!

Image:

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Las Vegas Review Journal contributor Sherman Frederick penned a column claiming that state legislators are pushing a new bill seeking to bolster sex education in Nevada because they believe “Nevada girls are easy.”

After discussing one Hispanic legislator’s support of comprehensive sex education, which Frederick assumes is just teaching students “how to put a Ziploc bag over a cucumber,” Frederick determines that the argument the legislator is making is that Hispanic girls are “really, really easy”:

As easy as Nevada girls are, you see, Nevada’s Hispanic girls are really, really easy. That comes from the mouth of Sen. Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas. According to him, that’s because Hispanic parents never talk to their children about sex. So government must do it.

Lest you think I am making this up, take a look at this excerpt from the Reno Gazette-Journal’s Ray Hagar, who interviewed Kihuen about AB230, and Assemblywoman Lucy Flores, D-Las Vegas, who testified in favor of the bill and revealed that she got pregnant as a teen and had it aborted.

[...]

Instead, we have AB230. Social conservatives on one side. Liberals on the other. And wanna-be leaders unwittingly (I hope) contending that not only are Nevada girls easy, Nevada’s Hispanic girls are really, really easy.

Frederick claimed that the “Nevada girls are easy” quote comes from a news report by Reno Gazette-Journal‘s Ray Hager. However, Hager said in a tweet “That’s Sherm’s quote. I, or anyone I’ve quoted, did not say that”:

In fact, the only person who ever brought up the sexual habits of teenage girls is Frederick as he admits: (click to enlarge)

Had Frederick actually cited a legislator who supported the bill, his column may have included revealing statistics about the state’s sexual education programs and teen pregnancy. The bill’s primary sponsor, Assemblyman David Bobzien (D-Reno), has explained that the bill is about “giving our students the facts – giving them the medically accurate information they need” with the hope of reducing Nevada’s teen pregnancy rate, which is the fourth-highest in the country.

As Vicki Cowart, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southern Nevada, explained in an op-ed in the Las Vegas Sun, the bill will allow much needed updates to the sexual education curriculum to include “age-appropriate” and “culturally sensitive” sexual education:

Sex education is required in Nevada schools, but the curriculum is outdated and failing to meet the needs of our state’s youths.

[...]

AB230 will specifically define core components that must be included in sexual health curricula. For example, the term “comprehensive” will be fully defined as “age-appropriate” and “culturally sensitive.” The latter will ensure that sexual health information that denigrates gay and transgender youths, as well as religious youths, will not be permitted. AB230 maintains local control for school districts and counties to make decisions about the curriculum and all materials that are used in the classroom. Parents maintain the ability to opt their student out of sex education (with no penalty) if they teach sex ed at home. Parental involvement is a key component of this bill and is an essential part of any good comprehensive sexual education program.

A report by ThinkProgress, which highlighted data from the Guttmacher Institute, noted this connection between poor sexual education and high teen birth rates in states.

The Guttmacher Institute found that studies show that comprehensive approaches to sex education (which they define as teaching both abstinence and the use of condoms and contraceptives) aided teens against the pressures of having sex too soon as well as contributing to “delayed or reduced sexual activity, reduced the number of sexual partners, or increased the use of condoms or other contraceptives.”  This finding is in stark contrast to studies on abstinence-only education, which found that abstinence-only programs had no effect on delaying teen sexual activity and may actually “deter contraceptive use among sexually active teens, increasing their risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs.”

Moreover, comprehensive sexual education has the support of many leading public health and medical professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Image: Media Matters

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On Wednesday a federal judge rejected efforts by the state of Arkansas to dismiss a legal challenge to the state’s 12-week abortion ban. The ruling on the state’s motion to dismiss came just two days before the court will hear arguments on the Center for Reproductive Rights’ and the American Civil Liberties Union’s motion to preliminary block the law from taking effect on July 18.

U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled that the lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of two Little Rock abortion providers, made a strong enough case to justify it moving forward. The state had put forward a number of arguments as to why the lawsuit should be dismissed, but Judge Wright rejected each argument outright. “The court finds at this pleading stage, plaintiffs have demonstrated a realistic danger of sustaining a direct injury as a result of Act 301′s operation or enforcement, and they have presented a justiciable controversy that is ripe for review,” Wright wrote in her ruling.

Among the arguments put forward by the state was that the 12-week restriction was constitutional because the law purports to only limit some abortions pre-viability and because it was done to protect the health of pregnant persons. Wright brushed that argument side, noting that 12 weeks is considered months before viability, which at a minimum means the plaintiffs have alleged enough of a claim to move forward. “Accepting these allegations as true, as the court must do at this juncture, the court finds that plaintiffs have alleged facts sufficient to state a claim that the provision of Act 301 that prohibits abortions at 12 weeks gestation when a fetal heartbeat is detected impermissibly infringes a woman’s Fourteenth Amendment right to choose to terminate a pregnancy before viability,” she wrote.

Judge Webber also rejected the state’s argument that the plaintiff’s couldn’t challenge the law yet because it had not yet taken effect and that they must wait until August. To the contrary, the court ruled, because doctors who violate the law face having their medical license revoked, that threat of enforcement was enough to challenge the law.

Arguments in plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction will be held Friday morning in federal court in Arkansas.

Image: gavel on book of laws and justice via Shutterstock

The post Arguments Moving Forward in Challenge to Arkansas 12-Week Abortion Ban appeared first on RH Reality Check.

Access to legal abortion is a human rights issue, a public health issue, and yes, in part a women’s issue. Do we need more pro-choice men in the reproductive rights movement? The answer is yes.

A recent RH Reality Check piece by Andrew Jenkins calling for a “bro-choice” movement—men supporting reproductive and sexual rights—nailed a number of key points, including that men are also subject to reproductive oppression, and individuals who don’t identify as women, such as transgender men, may also need access to abortion. His point, in part, was that restrictions on abortion and reproductive rights hurt everyone.

I’d like to take his excellent points a little further to apply a human rights and public health lens in looking at how men also are harmed by restrictions on reproductive rights. I’d also like to offer a defense of continuing to talk about abortion as a women’s issue, and pointers for how men can be supportive as allies within that frame.

It’s been nearly 20 years since Hillary Rodham Clinton, taking a page from decades-long work of women’s groups worldwide, reconfirmed at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing that “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.” This statement declares commonality, intersection, and overlap without declaring sameness. This provides an instructive blueprint for the inclusion of more “bro-choice” men in a broader discussion about human rights.

Reproductive rights includes the right to have children and the right not to have children free from coercion or control, which is among the most fundamental of human rights. Yes, these human rights extend to men, who experience a violation of self-determination when forced to undergo involuntary sterilization, or when forced, with a partner, to relinquish a pregnancy to a one-child policy, or when they encounter ideologically constructed legal barriers to accessing safe contraception.

While such policies affect men, that doesn’t obviate the fact that, overwhelmingly, it’s women’s human rights that are denied by restrictions on reproductive rights. Women’s human rights are at the center of the pro-choice movement.

Restrictions on reproductive rights increase maternal mortality, which kills women. Restrictions on abortion rights force women who would otherwise live through an unsustainable pregnancy, to die in hospitals (take, for example, Savita Halappanavar and the tens of thousands of other women who die each year from unsafe abortions around the world). Restrictions on access to contraception force women to go without needed medical care. From a human rights perspective, there is no need to gloss over the word “women” when working deliberately to incorporate more men into the movement.

A similar argument extends to the public health realm. Safe, legal, and accessible abortion saves women’s lives and prevents injury and unnecessary medical expense. In the United States, every dollar invested in helping women avoid pregnancies they do not want saves nearly $4 in Medicaid expenditures that would have otherwise been needed. Public health concerns, like human rights concerns, affect men and women and everyone. We will sink or swim together.

In the very good enthusiasm to expand the conversation about abortion and reproductive rights to include more men and to incorporate more perspectives, sometimes we hear folks suggesting that we shouldn’t talk about abortion as a women’s issue. Let’s not allow an aspiration for greater inclusion to throw out reality and lived experiences. Abortion is a women’s issue. Pregnancy is a women’s issue. Reproductive control is a women’s issue. That they are also human rights and public health issues, that more people should be included, does not mean they are not women’s issues.

Part of being a good ally includes affirming the identity of the person at the center of the storm, of not insisting that they be homogenized to include the identities of those experiencing less oppression. This is so critical when we talk about women’s rights, and abortion rights specifically.

Being proud to assert abortion as a women’s issue, whether you identify as woman or man, doesn’t negate the fact that everyone has a stake in the struggle. It also doesn’t say women are a monolithic category or negate the need to address gaping health and wealth disparities experienced by women of color. It doesn’t stop explicit inclusion of men who are transgender and may also need abortions. It does help keep women’s health, and justice for women, and the need to address sexism and gender discrimination, at the center of conversation about abortion—which is sorely needed.

Another argument surfaces regularly that women’s rights advocates should back away from abortion and reproductive health care to make other advances for the greater good. This is naivete and wishful thinking. Pregnancy and family issues engage all facets of a woman’s life: her economic standing, her emotional well-being, her physical health, her social standing, and her spiritual beliefs, if she has them. A woman’s reproductive life doesn’t sit in a separate tray by itself.

Further, sexist assumptions about women’s role in reproduction are at the core of other oppressions women face. Rape culture is intertwined with ideas that men are irresistibly driven to sex, that women are submissive sexual objects to be conquered, that women are either sluts or prudes. Lack of family supports in the workplace, from paid sick days to paid family leave, are tied with exclusionary and outdated middle-class white assumptions that there will be a woman in the home to take care of the family, and discrimination in pay, promotion, and leadership is underpinned by assumptions that men are primary breadwinners. Pretending that social discrimination against women is not linked with sexual discrimination against women, which can therefore be ignored, may feel “less controversial” but it’s not going to get us anywhere.

When men are quoted in the media five times more often than women on the topics of abortion and birth control, we are simply not ready to move abortion into a post-gender framework that declares abortion is “not a women’s issue.” In particular, it seems that society has a great deal of resistance to putting younger women and women of color, not mutually exclusive categories, at the center of reproductive rights conversations.

While we need more men, more LGBTQ people, and more of everyone taking leadership in the reproductive rights movement, those most directly affected by abortion restrictions—younger women and women of color—need more focus, not less. Turn on the television, and it’s not uncommon to see a white man opposing abortion rights and, if a pro-choice woman is included at all, she is often white and past reproductive age.

Within the abortion rights movement, there is some resistance to having the most directly affected lead the message in a way that doesn’t seem to be paralleled in other human rights movements, including LGBTQ movements and civil rights movements. Some take offense when it is suggested that more younger women and women of color should help lead. This is something that I hope men will keep in mind when taking on leadership roles in the movement. It is possible to be a loud ally and also be an ally who works to ensure more young women and women of color are included, and your sisters need the help.

Do we need more men to fight for reproductive and sexual rights on their own terms? Do we welcome more men to fight for abortion as human rights issues, public health issues, and women’s issues? Is it cool if those men want to call themselves “bro-choice”? The answer is an enthusiastic yes.

Image: Showing unity via Shutterstock

The post Yes, Abortion Is a Women’s Issue, and Yes, More Male Allies Are Welcome appeared first on RH Reality Check.

The Brazilian Immigrant Center, just outside of Boston, has launched a first-of-its-kind mediation program that seeks to resolve disputes between domestic workers and their employers. All five mediated disputes that the group has taken on so far have been resolved.

The domestic workers’ movement is gaining traction nationally, with multiple states introducing legislation to codify labor protections for this population of workers. To date, state legislation and litigation have been the primary strategies employed by domestic workers’ advocates for redressing unpaid wages and improving labor conditions, but if the Brazilian Immigrant Center’s program continues to succeed, mediation may become a more popular resolution method for domestic worker-employer disputes. And beyond its potential to resolve disputes, the program illustrates another way in which the domestic workers’ movement is expanding domestic workers’ leadership potential.

Mediation is a method of alternative dispute resolution that, in theory, encourages open communication between disputing parties. Neutral mediators help litigants resolve their disputes at a time and place that works for all parties. Depending on the type of dispute, mediation is not always effective, particularly when the parties involved would prefer to litigate so they have a chance at winning their entire claim. Mediation necessarily involves compromise. It is often built into typical employment suits.

The Brazilian Immigrant Center’s program shows that disputes between domestic workers and their employers may be a good fit for mediation. Given the deeply personal nature of domestic work, which often involves caring for children and the elderly, cooking, and living with families, the disputes can be very personal as well. Therefore, a resolution process that fosters open discussion is useful, as Lydia Edwards, director of legal services at the Brazilian Immigrant Center, told RH Reality Check.

“Domestic work is a unique industry with a different kind of employer-employee relationship that is as personal as it is legal,” Edwards said. “The issues are often very hurtful, personal issues related to respect and abuse and general workplace treatment inside of someone’s home. It’s not always cut-and-dry, like, ‘You didn’t pay me.’”

Over the last two years, the Brazilian Immigrant Center has litigated 50 cases between domestic workers and their employers, and 10 percent of those have been resolved through mediation.

The center’s mediation program dispatches two-person teams—one worker and one employer—to mediate the disputes. “The worker-employer relationship is so symbiotic. One doesn’t exist without the other,” Edwards told RH Reality Check. “And it is a matter of keeping the process neutral too.”

This mediation program’s model enables the disputing parties to avoid expensive litigation, which is particularly important since domestic workers often earn minimum-wage salaries and a court date could force a worker to miss work. Mediation also gives litigants more control over when the mediation may take place, whereas court dates are typically dictated by a judge. And mediation is generally subject to confidentiality agreements between the parties, whereas court documents are a matter of public record.

In the five cases resolved through the center’s mediation program, the domestic workers never litigated a suit against their employers in court.

Some legal aid providers caution that mediation may not always be appropriate to resolve domestic worker-employer disputes without litigation.

“From our experience with cases in which workers’ rights have been violated, it is clear that many employers need litigation to give them the incentive to meaningfully engage in mediation,” said Hollis Pfitsch, staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of New York.

Pfitsch also believes mediation works best when the employer and employee have committed to a collective bargaining process and a contract that has ensured that basic standards have already been met. One study of success rates in the U.S. Postal Service’s mediation program shows that mediation is effective when employees are unionized. However, domestic workers are currently not covered by federal collective bargaining law or most states’ collective bargaining laws.

Beyond just the potential to resolve worker-employer disputes, including domestic workers in the process as mediators has been an innovative way of developing workers’ leadership and career skills. The majority of these workers are immigrant women, and many have earned college degrees in their home countries but fell into domestic work in the United States due to language barriers or because they may be undocumented.

Sona Soares is a career domestic worker who has been trained to serve as a volunteer mediator in the Brazilian Immigrant Center’s program. Soares was raised in Brazil, where she earned degrees in mechanical engineering and math. She moved to the United States at age 22, fell in love, married, and had a baby. Her husband abandoned Soares when her son was 19 days old.

“Becoming a domestic worker often results from a lack of options and necessity. I had to take care of my son,” Soares said. “And I had steady work as a housekeeper and nanny.”

She said that over the past 28 years she’s worked as a domestic worker, she has worked for kind employers as well those who have treated her poorly.

“Sometimes you go home and cry a little,” she said. “And the next day you get up and go to work again.”

After several years volunteering with the Brazilian Immigrant Center as a volunteer interpreter, Soares participated in the mediation training program along with about 20 other domestic workers and employers.

“There’s not always enough attorneys to go around, plus there’s this untapped talent that immigrant women have,” Edwards said. “Many workers like Sona Soares have college degrees from the U.S. or other countries that they aren’t using. So we felt that here’s this untapped potential and there’s tons of disputes that need to be resolved.”

Image: A boys babysitter via Shutterstock

The post Improving How Domestic Workers and Their Employers Settle Disputes appeared first on RH Reality Check.