Criminalizing abortion doesn't decrease numbers!

Remember when I told you that the level of a country’s women’s health care directly correlates to its feminist movement (yet another handy factoid learned at the Feminist Majority’s Women, Money, Power Summit?) Well, it seems as if our panelists were onto something because the theme proves true yet again.

For quite some time, the Guttmacher Institute has been researching the relation in a country's abortion rights and its number of abortions.

This week, the results were set. The data showed that the legal status doesn’t change numbers; roughly the same amount of women was getting the procedure under both liberal and heavy restrictions. The big variable was women's access to contraception and family planning.

So, giving women the tools to decide when and if they want children affects the number of unwanted pregnancies. Funny how it works out like that, huh?!?

This is not to say that the legal status of abortion doesn’t change anything. We have seen time and time again those countries with heavy abortion restrictions (40% of the world’s women!) tend to be developing countries, where illegal and unsafe abortions aren’t hard to find, but the difference in the care and health of the woman before and after the procedure is immense.

Because women try to seek alternatives through unsafe abortions, 700,000 deaths occur each year. Also, consider the other five million who are left with medical complications after the fact.

The Guttmacher Institute walks out from their research with three areas of improvement: increased access to modern family planning, access to legal and safe abortions and access to post-abortion care.

photo credits: willem_velthoven from flickr.com

Gallup Poll Shows Change in Public Opinion Towards Abortion

Recent Gallup Polls show a shocking change in the public's opinion about abortion. When asked, "With respect to the abortion issue, would you consider yourself to be pro-choice or pro-life?" the poll results showed that 51% of Americans consider themselves to be "pro-life;" a statistic that has risen from 44% since May of 2008. In response, a minority of 42% of Americans consider themselves to be pro-choice, decreasing from 50% in 2008. This is a drastic change from the poll taken in September 1995, where 53% of Americans polled considered him or herself to be pro-choice, and 33% considered themselves to be pro-life.

Many other questions regarding abortion legality (in terms of overturning Roe VS Wade and creating more stringent laws) were asked and showed similar responses.

The real question is: Why is "pro-life" (in reality: anti-choice) now the majority? Within the poll of this year, 4% of the population didn't know what the terms meant, and 1% had no opinion.

The wording of the question can bias one's answer, such as is the case with the poll regarding late abortion. The question asked in 2003 was: "Now I would like to ask your opinion about a specific abortion procedure known as 'late term' abortion or 'partial birth' abortion, which is sometimes performed on women during the last few months of pregnancy. Do you think that the government should make this procedure illegal, (or do you think that) this procedure should be legal?" The poll found that 25% thought it should be legal, 68% thought it should be illegal, and 7% had no opinion.

If one were to solely take these statistics in mind, it would seem that the majority of Americans were against late abortions. However, this question did not include the circumstance under which most women have late abortions: when the life of the mother would be endangered by carrying the pregnancy to term. In 2003, 85% of those polled agreed that late abortion SHOULD be legal if the life of the mother were endangered, 11% still thought that it should be illegal (???), 2% were unsure, and 2% had no opinion.

So, finally, it is important to take into account how questions are worded, who is being polled, and current politics at hand. As a feminist, what do you think we should do to ensure a pro-choice America? President Obama being pro-choice doesn't guarantee a pro-choice nation, as much as one could hope.

Picture courtesy of openDemocracy

Calling Oklahoma Feminists!

I know you're out there, OK! I myself hail from the great Sooner State, and though I now am based out on the east coast with FMF, I still organize in Oklahoma, have family in Oklahoma, and for better or worse, have a soft spot for Oklahoma.

Now, I know I'm not the only Oklahoman feminist. I know you're alive and kicking - and I want to hear from you! Why?

Because there is plenty of feminist work to be done in Oklahoma. Just yesterday I found out that House Bill 1595 passed the state house, which would require doctors performing abortions to submit a questionnaire giving the reason for the abortion and how it was being paid for. The questionnaires would then be held in a database maintained by the Department of Health.

At first glance, this seemed to me to be a waste of time, certainly, and another piece of red tape for women. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's not only a waste of time - it's a superfluous waste of state resources. The Tulsa World quotes Rep. Ryan Kiesel (D-Seminole) saying, "We're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, most of it for data. Have any of you looked at the form doctors already fill out? I have. There is already a questionnaire."

The bill is en route to the Senate now, which is exactly why I want my fellow Oklahoma feminists to take action. Call your senators, talk with your family, and get in touch with me - vvilott [at] feminist [dot] org - and let's strengthen the pro-choice movement in our state!