Breaking news from SC

I've just been speaking to the South Carolina Coalition for Healthy Families in Columbia. I actually called about something else, but here's what they told me:

The ultrasound bill is going before the State Senate's Medical Committee tomorrow morning, and they're asking for testimony from MDs as well as from other professionals with an opinion about this issue. They know that it's incredibly short notice, but if you're available, consider attending the session, which will be Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. in room 308 of the Gressette Office Building. South Carolina Coalition for Healthy Families will compensate for mileage. Brandi Parrish is the contact person, at 803-929-0088.

You can go to www.scstatehouse.net to get directions to the building and to see the text of the bill, which is #84.

The person I talked to asked me to spread the word that the situation is desperate. The Greenville News has reported that Senator Bryant, who proposed the ultrasound bill, was so encouraged by how quickly it was approved by the House that he's considering introducing an amendment that would require that all women having an abortion have to view their ultrasound at a crisis pregnancy center.

We need to call our senators. Senator McConnell and others are concerned about the constitutionality of this bill and will respond to calls (his #, by the way, is (803) 212-6610). This is not the time to sit back and think that others will do it.

Quick update: I just called Senator McConnell's office and talked to his administrative person, who was so glad I called! She said everyone in their office opposes the bill, and they're eager to get evidence of opposition from constituents. She said it would be wonderful for people who have an opinion on the bill to email Senator McConnell at sju@scsenate.org.

Pissed off feminist speaks out

Today's Post and Courier gave a small update on a piece of legislation making its way through the system. This legislation mandates that women seeking an abortion have an ultrasound and be forced to look at the image before their abortion.

I was interviewed about this legislation a few weeks ago, and the reporter then told me that the legislators are trying to sell this bill as something for women's health, because it's medically important to have an ultrasound before you have an abortion. I told the reporter that women already have ultrasounds before abortions so that the clinic can make sure they're not too far along. The reporter said, "Oh, really?" She was surprised, because the lobbyists are acting as if this ultrasound idea is some brilliant thing they've come up with, when in fact all they've really come up with is the "medical necessity" of the woman's looking at the fetus.

Carla Harvey, who works at the Lowcountry Crisis Pregnancy Center (for those of you not in the know, "crisis pregnancy center" is code for anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-truth centers where women who are unexpectedly pregnant are pressured to keep the baby), said, "In ultrasounds, a baby at eight weeks will jump on the screen and suck their thumbs."

When I had my abortion, which was at about eight weeks, I looked at the ultrasound image. It was a dime-sized blob. It did not jump. No thumb-sucking. There wasn't a Gerber baby in there.

The antis have done a great job of shaping the public conversation about abortion. They've humanized the fetus--they've coopted our warm, loving feelings about babies and said, "Feel this way about the fertilized egg, too." And if someone is pregnant and wants to be, then all those warm, loving feelings are great. But if she doesn't want to be pregnant, if she doesn't want to be a mother, then it doesn't help even if the fetus is reciting Shakespeare--she still doesn't want it. I didn't want it.

The reason I'm talking about my own abortion so much here lately is that I think the rhetoric of "choice" that feminists have been using is a little thin in comparison to the rhetoric of "fetal personhood" that the antis are using. The person I'd like us to focus on is not the potential one but the unambiguous, fully realized one, the woman herself. Her life, my life, is what we should be concerned about. How does our society benefit if a sixteen-year-old--or a college student--or a young professional like me--is guilted into bearing a child she can't raise, or just doesn't want?

Blogging for choice

Today is the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, so the NARAL Pro-Choice America is sponsoring Blog for Choice. Click here for links to all the blogs that are participating.

They've asked us to weigh in about why we're pro-choice. I did a bit of that in my post on Saturday, but I'll offer a few abbreviated thoughts here before I head to work.

I'm pro-choice because a woman's ability to determine whether and when she gets pregnant affects every other aspect of her life. Everything--my relationships, my job, my economic status, my existence in my own body--would be affected were I to get pregnant. Now, that's not to say that they would be affected in a negative way, but they would be affected, and only I am in a position to weigh all the factors and judge whether or not pregnancy and motherhood are right for me.

I'm in favor of comprehensive sex education and the widespread availability of birth control (with lots of options), emergency contraception, and abortion. I'm in favor of much broader support for mothers and children so that people who do want to have kids can do so (is it worth mentioning here that the states that have the most restrictions on abortion also provide the least support for poor children?)--and these positions are also part of what it means to me to be pro-choice.

So, happy Jan. 22. Those of you in the Charleston area might want to come out tonight to a screening of the film The Abortion Diaries at the Circular Church at 7 p.m. Director Penny Lane will be there to lead a discussion after the film.

This morning at the clinic

Every Saturday morning, protestors show up at the one abortion clinic in Charleston. Since last winter, several women I respect and admire have been running a clinic defense program, coordinating volunteers to escort the women through the protestors and into the clinic.

I went this morning. In a freak act of religious solidarity, churches have divided up the weekends when they'll come out and heckle the patients. Catholics get the third Saturday of the month, and as the morning progressed, they showed up in greater and greater numbers, until there were probably 40 of them lined up in the grass in front of the clinic parking lot. They chanted in unison--hail Marys and various credos that I wasn't familiar with, involving saving people's souls from hell--and yelled at the women as they entered the building. Standard stuff, mostly: "Don't kill your baby!" and "Your baby has fingernails and can feel pain!" and "Abortion is murder!"

Once patients are in the parking lot, they're safe--that's private property, and the protestors can't get near them. But after a certain point in the morning, the parking lot filled up. When one woman drove into the parking lot (having to dodge the protestors who try to block every car as it enters), I went up to her car and told her that she'd have to park across the street.

"I'm so scared!" she said. And I could see why: when you park across the street, you're fair game for the protestors. You have to walk through them to get into the clinic. She was by herself, probably in her early 20s.

"Well, a bunch of us are going to follow your car over to where you park, and we're going to walk back here with you," I told her. "It's going to be okay."

As soon as she left the parking lot, several protestors started following her car, too, and we had to really hurry to beat them to her door. "I'm scared!" she said again.

We flanked her on all sides, and as we walked, I just kept talking to her: "You don't have to listen to them or take anything they try to give you. They're going to yell, but they can't do anything to you. Look, see that yellow line? As soon as we step over that line, they can't follow you. We're really close now. Just don't listen to them at all. You don't even have to look at them."

And then we were over the yellow line, and she went in.

I was really lucky. When I had my abortion, there were no protestors there. I got to go into a quiet clinic and have a medical procedure. And I'm so grateful for that. I can't imagine how awful--how angering, demeaning, frightening, sickening--it would have been to have strangers surrounding me, blocking me, yelling at me and condemning me for making such an important, personal decision.

I was really honored to be at the clinic this morning. I got to be brave so that she could be scared, and we got her in.