Let's Get Out Her Vote in California!

There's so much at stake across the nation during the 2010 elections, but especially California. With important races and ballot initiatives to vote on this Fall, we must mobilize to get young people to the polls in the Golden State!

What's at stake you ask? Plenty!

• Abortion rights: Access to safe, legal abortions and affordable family planning services, including California’s Family PACT program which provides free reproductive health care to low-income women, are constantly under attack. Your vote will help determine whether reproductive health care and comprehensive sexual education are supported over failed abstinence-only programs.
  
  
• Education and loans: California is experiencing an education budget crisis, with a projected $18.9 billion deficit for the next fiscal year. Cuts across all levels of education make enrollment in classes increasingly difficult and limit access to quality public education.
  
  
• The Environment: Voters can limit the harmful environmental impacts of big business by voting for cleaner energy measures which contributes to the creation of jobs, development of renewable energy sources and the reduction of California’s dependency on foreign oil.
  
  
• LGBTQ Rights and Marriage Equality: In California and across the nation LGBTQ civil rights issues, including marriage equality and the right to serve openly in the military, will be in the hands of our state and federal law makers.
  
  
• Immigration: Some state law makers support harsh immigration legislation that encourages racial profiling. If such measures were adopted, many families could be torn apart and children of immigrants could lose their path to citizenship. Your vote can determine what kind of legislation our state adopts on immigration policies.
  

Be sure to get involved in our "Get Out Her Vote" Campaign. We have California specific organizing materials to make sure you register, educate, and mobilize students to the polls.

Don't be intimidated! We have a step by step guide on how to get started:

1. Register students to vote! Form broad coalitions with other campus groups, and work with the student government for a massive voter registration efforts. Table everyday, have visibility events, recruit volunteers, and get people to sign the voter pledge!

2. Educate! Make sure people know why they should vote! Young people are the least registered, least voting demographic. Our voice needs to be heard! Flyer with information about what's at stake, use social media to get the word out, and get press coverage about the issues!

3. Mobilize to the polls! It's one thing to register, but it's another thing to get people to the polls on election day! Make sure your volunteers phone bank, chalk, flyer, and have visibility action to remind people to vote and where their polling locations are.

Don't forget to check out our FAQs on student voting, that answers questions like, "Can I vote where I go to school?" (answer: YES!) and "Will my financial aid be affected if I register at a different address than my parents' address?" (answer: NO!)

Get out there California!

Be sure to contact your campus organizers with any questions by email, jsun@feminist.org or mduran@feminist.org, or by phone 866-471-FMLA.

This was post was featured in the September 2010 campus eZine. To join our mailing list, sign up here.

The Intersection of Abortion and LGBTQ Rights

Cross-posted at Ode to Patriarchy

I talk a lot about LGBTQ rights, and I talk a lot about abortion rights. So do a lot of people. But very rarely do they ever seem to be mentioned together. And I know the obvious rebuttal... "it's not like someone's going to get pregnant"...

But in reality, it's two different sides of the same issue. Politicians trying to control other people's bodies (especially white, upper-class, straight, cis men controlling the bodies of anyone different from them, especially women).

Think about it. All the fuss about the "sanctity" of marriage and how same-sex marriage would destroy such an institution is a way to prevent physical interactions between LGBTQ individuals. The actual success of such an argument can be debated, but really the message is the same. While many laws prohibiting sodomy and other types of sexual interaction have been removed or buried so deep in the history books that they have no purpose, some still exist on the record across the nation. In addition, we still live in a culture that looks down on premarital sex (to the point that you can lose your job in some areas), teaches abstinence until marriage in public schools, and is horrified by the scandal that is teenage pregnancy. In a last ditch effort to control what LGBTQ individuals do in the bedroom, anti-gay politicians push for the ban of same-sex marriage, dismissal of LGBTQ people from the military, and prevention of gay adoption. All under the guise of religious doctrine and "pro-family" politics.

Meanwhile, in the abortion debate, the justifications for controlling LGBTQ bodies are the same as the justifications for banning abortion. Mandatory waiting periods, lack of insurance coverage, and restrictions on who can have an abortion take control of a woman's body away from her and gives it to typically male politicians. The question of how does a male politician with no medical training in abortion or experience as a woman know what is best for a woman, of course, is never said. Access to birth control and abortion are restricted little by little with the full intention of placing control of women's bodies in the hand of male politicians. Like with anti-gay politics, religious reasons and "pro-life" mantras are used on the streets and in the courtrooms to dictate what a woman can and cannot do with her own body.

To those who would say that no one chooses to be gay, trans, or anything in between, while women choose to have sex with the risk of getting pregnant, I disagree. No one chooses to be gay, true. But women don't choose the circumstances that affect getting an abortion. Abortion may be a choice, but the financial, emotional, and physical situations that a woman is in aren't choices. When a woman gives a partner consent, she's consenting to sex, not a pregnancy. If pregnancy were a choice then we wouldn't have to pay for birth control, we could just choose not to have the sperm fertilize the egg. Simple. Saying that a woman who is pregnant and considering abortion should have thought about that before having sex is like saying a person injured in a car accident should have thought about that before buying a car. Or that a person throwing up from food poisoning should have thought about that before eating at a restaurant.

In response to the inevitable "why would a lesbian need an abortion anyway?" I would like to point out that it's not just straight or bi women who get abortions. Lesbians, like all women, can be raped or assaulted incestuously. To dismiss lesbian and queer women from the abortion debate is to dismiss the experiences of those who have been the survivors of sexual violence.

Both LGBTQ and abortion rights come down to asserting that WE are the ones who control our bodies. WE must fight to make sure that WE have control over who we sleep with and what can be inside us. These aren't separate struggles. If we give in on one, we give in on them all.

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Photo credit: kevindooley on flickr.com

Ode to Patriarchy is Kari's personal blog. Don't worry, the name is ironic.

Fem News: Some Clarification About New Health Care Reform

Do You Feel Lucky? What Unwanted Pregnancy Meant In the 1960s

The battle between pro-choice and pro-life (or anti-choice) protesters seems to be waging at overwhelming extremes lately. And as an intern here at FMF, I have taken part in writing updates dealing with abortion bills being passed state by state, on a weekly basis. However, of all the writing I have read about abortion and the argument for pro-choice, this article stands in a category of its own.

Guernica, a magazine of art and politics, featured a piece titled "Lucky Girl" by Bridget Potter. Ms. Potter wrote a historical memoir about what life was like in the 1960s, and the segment featured here is about her experience with an unwanted pregnancy at age 19.

Disclaimer: This piece of writing is not for the faint of heart. Some of the descriptions are rather shocking, if not grotesque. But I believe being shocked into reality can be a very effective way to learn and appreciate what we have.

The reason this story stood out to me was because it is a personal account. A stark, honest description of the measures this young woman went to for a solution to her problem. There are plenty of people, especially women, who do not understand why Roe vs. Wade was as monumental as it was, and why so many fight to protect it. This true story might help clarify that.

Because, you see, Ms. Potter's circumstances were not uncommon for her day. She was not irresponsible about contraception, simply misinformed. Sadly, one mistake led to her unwanted pregnancy, at a time in her life when she did not have the time, living conditions or finances to support a child.

Ms. Potter explains: "There was also an acute social stigma attached to an unwed mother with an illegitimate child; maternity homes were frequently frightening and far away. All counseled adoption. The only alternatives were a shotgun wedding or an illegal abortion.

According to a 1958 Kinsey study, illegal abortion was the option chosen by 80 percent of single women with unwanted pregnancies. Statistics on illegal abortion are notoriously unreliable, but the Guttmacher Institute, a respected international organization dedicated to sexual and reproductive health, estimates that during the pre-Roe vs. Wade years there were up to one million illegal abortions performed in the United States each year."

Today, single motherhood is much more common (although often still not desired) and not nearly as frowned upon as it used to be. We are also far better informed about contraception, and have many more options aside from diaphragms (which were only given out by pharmacists to married women at the time) and the suspicious "pink foam" that Ms. Potter used.

However, it is not the facts that got my attention. It was the dangerous, expensive and seemingly hopeless struggle Ms. Potter endured to attain an illegal abortion. How isolated she felt in her predicament, and the countless other women who experienced the same situation then and are experiencing it today.

This story will bring out emotions in you that may contradict each other. And if nothing else, it will make you realize who was considered a lucky girl back then, how lucky we are as women today...and how quickly it can all be taken away.

Photo credit: lilyana at deviantART

My First FM-Effort Toward Change

Hello to all FMF Blog readers, my name is Ilona Globa. This is my first week as a spring FMF intern. I’m completing my undergraduate degree in journalism (with a research interest in feminism) at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania this May.

I’d like to share with you a relatively unique experience I had with FMF. I attended the Stop Stupak Coalition Meeting and Lobby Day on January 20. There were 2 other FMF interns in attendance, and a group of FMF staff members led the way into my first experience in the world of lobbying.

The day began with a collective meeting of a variety of women’s rights groups, including Planned Parenthood, the National Organization for Women and many others. There were several keynote speakers who reminded us of our goals that day.

Then everyone was released. Some went to appointments they had scheduled with state representatives, while others simply dropped by their offices in hopes of catching the politicians or their aids. I found out legislative assistants do quite a bit of work in the political process. Sure, the representatives themselves are who we see in televised meetings on C-SPAN, many of them middle-aged, white men. But their legislative assistants are the ones who do much of the “dirty work” and handle a great deal of the politics behind large, wooden, closed doors. And these people are generally in their mid to late 20s, many of them women.

I was with Government Relations Director Norma Gattsek and National Campus Organizer Danielle Geong. FMF has campus ties with schools in many districts, so we came to represent the students who could not attend to voice their ideas.

Sadly, two of the three reps we hoped to speak to (and by that, I mean the aid to the rep) were simply unavailable when we stopped by. Not to mention, lobbyists are not on many people’s list of favorites.

Finally, Danielle and I caught a few (and I do mean few) minutes of Dan Farmer’s time. He is the assistant to Ohio Representative Zack Space. We hoped to change Space’s opinion about the Stupak Amendment, which he had voted in favor of. Sadly, his aid seemed more anxious to get on with his day than to discuss any of his boss’s ideas, and we left the meeting feeling unfulfilled.

However, I will not let this phase me. I never thought I would be given the opportunity to lobby, nor do I plan to do it for a living. But I look forward to trying it again, with my mentors here at FMF. And I’m determined to accomplish more and come better prepared next time. And if you feel hesitant about trying it, my advice is not to over-think it. The idea is to demonstrate that you are informed and passionate, in a diplomatic manner. Another goal is to listen. Keep these ideas in mind and remember that every effort counts. So I encourage everyone to try it.

For Goodness Sake, Just Trust Us!

In honor of the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, NARAL is holding the 5th annual Blog for Choice Day!

I would like to start off with a response to the Newsweek blogpost in The Gaggle about this years Roe v. Wade Anniversary March. I'm slightly offended by some of the assumptions they made.

For example, this years march is shorter and is earlier in the day than in previous years. There could be many reasons for this alteration, but the blogger thought the only clear choice was that "the organizers are getting older, and it’s more difficult for them to walk a long distance". Excuse me? Just because a lot of the protesters are some of the original participants in the abortion movement are over 60, does not mean that they have difficulty walking.

The Gaggle also assumes that there is going to be a lack of young feminists because “older generations had friends and family members who died of complications or found themselves sterilized because of abortion. Young women today don’t have that personal connection.” While we may not have a connection to the past, the current threats to abortion rights are direct threats to our bodies. Abortion laws may not affect our past, but they affect our future so it is our responsibility more than anyone else's to make sure our rights aren't threatened.

Younger feminists are criticized for not being as out there as past generations of feminists. Because of new technologies that allow us to stay home and still reach thousands of people through blogging, we receive a lot of slack for not knowing how to protest. Well I would like you all to know that today I am going to blog and protest. So take that Newsweek! Maybe we are a little physically inactive, but we are able to spread our feminist voice in other methods. You just need to trust us.

This brings me to this year's Blog for Choice Day Question is: What does "Trust Women" mean to you? This is in honor of Dr. George Tiller's famous tag line and button that he frequently wore.

I think that "Trust Women" is one of the more powerful pro-choice statements. It is concise and manages to tell people to stay out of everybody else's business without being offensive. Simply, just trust women and the decisions they want to make about their body and their lives.

Everyone is constantly telling women what to do, what to think, who to be, what to wear. Why is it that people think they have a say in our lives? They say they are trying to protect us from the big bad world, but is it really because they see us as incompetent girls who are unable to decide what is right for us? You don't know me, how could you possibly know what's right for me? Get out of my life and away from my uterus! TRUST ME! You need to trust all women because believe it or not, they are people to.

To see more blog posts about trusting women go to NARAL's Blog for Choice

Guest post: 10 ways to celebrate Roe v. Wade!

Guest post by Jesse Michener, treasurer of Kutztown University's Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance!

Friday was the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that re-legalized abortion in the United States. This is a day we feminist activists are supposed to be celebrating, but when looking at all of the barriers to obtaining safe, legal abortion, it’s difficult to celebrate.

There are more barriers to a woman’s right to choose today then there have been for decades. Many states have parental consent laws and mandatory delays. Add to that the lack of abortion providers and the harassment they face, and one can see how truly a woman’s right to choose is in jeopardy. That’s why on this anniversary, I think it’s important to remember a quote by Mother Jones, a labor activist, who once said, “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

Before Roe, women died because they were unable to find safe abortion providers, and 37 years later we are still fighting to keep abortion safe and legal. That’s why we as pro-choice activists need to redouble our efforts to protect a woman’s right to choose, so that hopefully we can work to break down many of the barriers to choice that now exist. For this anniversary, I thought of ten things we all can do to support the pro-choice movement.

1. Online Activism: Everyone has a Facebook or a Myspace or a Twitter account. Use yours to support choice. Post pro-choice articles, make your status a pro-choice message, join pro-choice groups and become a fan of pro-choice organizations.

2. Join a group: There are many great pro-choice organizations out there from FMLAs on campus to local NOW chapters. Become involved in these organizations and work with others to make a difference.

3. Donate: Give what you can to organizations that support abortion rights. Organizations like the Feminist Majority, Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation do amazing things. Giving just a little to these organizations can make a big difference.

4. Expose Fake Clinics and other anti-choice organizations: Many people are unaware that Crisis Pregnancy Centers do not refer for or perform abortions. It’s important to educate people on campus and in the community about this, so that people are aware and can make educated choices on where to go for reproductive health care.

5. Come Out: Come out as being pro-choice, discuss the issue with your friends and family, put a pro-choice bumper sticker on your car, wear a pro-choice shirt or button and be proud that you support a woman’s right to choose.

6. Volunteer: Many abortion providers need volunteers and there are many different ways one can. Clinic escorting is just one way to volunteer; this is where people walk patients and their support people through anti-choice protesters into the clinic. To find out how to help, call your local abortion provider and ask how you can help out.

7. VOTE: Becoming politically involved is one of the most important things we can do. Why not join a campaign, sign a petition or run for office. Being politically involved will ensure that future generations will still have the right to choose.

8. Educate Others: Organize an event on campus or do a presentation for a class on a woman’s right to choose. This is a great way to help others become more aware of important issues and to help more people get involved.

9. Advocate for others: Not everyone feels comfortable standing up for their own rights so it’s important for those of us who feel comfortable to speak up. Find out where your campus health center refers students who face an unintended pregnancy. If they don’t give students all of their options, speak up and fight for change.

10. Support All Choices: Last but not least, we need to remember that being pro-choice isn’t just about abortion, it’s about supporting self-determination. Over the last several decades the social safety net in our country has been eroded and it has become harder and harder for women who choose to become parents and adoption is a complicated process. We as feminist need to support women who choose to become parents and women who choose adoption as well.

Photo credit: KU FMLA

Thanks for weighing in, Jesse! If you would like to showcase your feminist group's activism around Roe v. Wade and abortion rights, send your 350 word post to campusteam (at) feminist (dot) org :D