Defending Choice in Charlotte

Every Saturday morning members of the Feminist Union at UNC Charlotte gather on East Hebron Street in front of Family Reproductive Health, a comprehensive women's health care clinic, prepared to brave the elements and the antis. Anti-abortion extremists such as Flip Benham, leader of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, who was found guilty this week of criminal stalking and picketing for distributing WANTED posters of Charlotte abortion providers in their neighborhoods and offices.

Through training and support from the National Clinic Access Project, a project of The Feminist Majority Foundation, and the Choices Campus Leadership Program, members of the Feminist Union were trained in clinic defense and legal observation to support Family Reproductive Health against the harassment by anti-abortion extremists. The Feminist Union is just one of many pro-choice student groups across the country that are supporting the clinics in their community through FMF's Adopt-A-Clinic Campaign since its introduction last Spring.

Since joining FMF's campaign this summer to defend Charlotte clinics during OR/OSA's siege of bullying and intolerance, the Feminist Union has continued their support of Family Reproductive Health. Each Saturday morning four to ten Feminist Union members serve as a physical barrier from anti-abortion protesters and ensure that all staff and patients safely enter the clinic with minimal harassment. Members also serve as legal observers to assist FMF in the prosecution of FACE and federal and state anti-stalking law violations.

"Defending Family Reproductive Health has really brought us together," according to one member of the Feminist Union. "The antis have started targeting the clinic defenders and have given us all nicknames." In addition to non-violent and non-engagement defense of the clinic, the group gathers to make signs to hold in support of the clinic and thank you cards to the staff. The Feminist Union has seen tremendous growth since their activism against clinic violence and now have a regular membership of 30 students! "It's the utmost form of activism. You have to be out there to experience it, to see the injustice."

Thankfully some of that injustice is starting to get national attention. Many news outlets including NPR, CBS, and MSNBC recently covered the WANTED posters distributed by anti-abortion extremist Flip Benham and the connection between such violent threats and the deaths of abortion providers. "These WANTED posters are communicating a threat to these abortion providers; doctors featured on WANTED posters in the past have become targets of anti-abortion extremists willing to kill, including most recently Dr. George Tiller," stated Kathy Spillar, Executive Vice-President of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Unfortunately the terror that is experienced by Family Reproductive Health is not exclusive to Charlotte, NC. Clinics across the country are experiencing an increase in clinic violence since the 2008 election. Comprehensive clinics and a woman's right to a safe and legal abortion is under attack in your community! Join groups like the Feminist Union and support your clinic against anti-abortion extremists through FMF's Adopt-A-Clinic Campaign. Contact your FMF National Campus Organizer and begin defending a woman's right to choose today!

Photo credit: Meghan Shalvoy


This post is part of the November 2010 ezine. To subscribe to the monthly ezine, click here.

Clinic Defense & Campus Organizing - A Natural Partnership

Bonjour Campus Choices! Meghan here, and this is my first of many posts as the newest member of Choices Campus Leadership Program’s team of National Campus Organizers. Although new to this position, I am no stranger to the dangers of clinic harassment and violence, or FMF’s work to assist in defending clinics against it.

This July, I joined FMF as a volunteer to keep the clinics of Charlotte, NC safe from the harassment of Operation Save America’s (OSA) annual clinic siege. If you’ve ever seen your average weekend “sidewalk counselor” protests outside a clinic, take that image and quadruple it. Meditate for a moment for sanity’s sake, and then double it again, totally approximately 250 anti-choice harassers.

As a part the National Clinic Access Project, FMF brought in volunteers from miles and miles away to combat the extreme tactics of OSA, which included posting WANTED posters of the brave and committed abortion providers who staff the Charlotte clinics, holding up oversized posters which featured graphic and medically inaccurate images of dead babies, blocking driveways, and using an amplifier to preach hate to the patients, staff and pro-choice volunteers.

Although there were three clinics that were targeted by OSA, Family Reproductive Health requested a presence of pro-choice clinic defenders throughout the week and we spent the majority of our time there. I had never seen anything like what I saw in Charlotte, and it is hard to articulate how sad and infuriating it was to see the way these self-proclaimed intolerant people would attack women who were simply trying to receive basic reproductive health care.

I would, without a doubt, just as soon favor every woman in America have safe and free access to reproductive health services, but what surprised me most was how much I enjoyed my time in Charlotte. Banding together with dozens of passionate and committed pro-choice volunteers, FMF staff, students from UNCC Feminist Union, and Charlotte Pro-Choice Coalition members to keep FRH and the other Charlotte clinics safe and protected by our efforts – including clinic defense, counter-protesting, legal observation and close contact with law enforcement – was inspiring, to say the least.

On the last day of the clinic siege, we managed to rally over 75 clinic defenders in the wee hours of the morning so that when OSA arrived to set up their Harassment HQ, they promptly turned their vans around and drove away. According to the fantastic clinic staff, it was the first Saturday without harassment and protest in the 8 years the clinic had been open.

Luckily, it is not every Saturday that OSA brings hundreds of people from all over the country to target a clinic, but virtually every day of the year there is some form of harassment outside of hundreds of clinics across the US. Get involved to help keep these clinics safe by joining in our Adopt-a-Clinic Campaign. There are so many ways you can help keep your clinic safe and open. Vocal pro-choice support can keep patients safe when entering the clinic, help maintain law enforcements attention to this issue, and show clinics that their hard work is appreciated and important.

This blog post is part of the October eZine. To receive our monthly eZine, click here.

Clinic defense: A prochoice band-aid

My clinic escort buddy Username Catbus recently posted reasons why clinic defense is a crummy volunteer gig, and why he does it anyway. His main points:

a) You have to listen to racist jerks yell babykiller epithets at you and patients. Further reading: Our local antis created a handy manual on how to harass women on the street who might be "abortion-minded"

b) It's boring and you risk sunburn/inclement weather/racist jerks

c) Clinic defense best suits volunteers with an even keeled temperament, so it's not for everyone, and

d) If you don't have an even keeled temperament, you're better off doing other prochoice work like lobbying or campaigning for progressive candidates, since clinic defense is just a band-aid for a bigger problem.

But we continue to volunteer because it is generally the most meaningful and rewarding reason to wake up at 7am on a Saturday. Really, clinic defense is my favorite volunteer activity and I encourage everyone who's pro-choice to try it. In addition to the general warm fuzzy feelings you get from volunteering, consider:

a) It's 8:30am. Sleepiness often trumps crankiness at antis.

b) You get to socialize with cool people you might not ordinarily meet. I've met prochoice bloggers, Hill staffers, dog walkers, federal contractors, college kids, and legendary local escort Phil. Far better than okcupid or networking happy hours.

c) You can have a really productive Saturday when you wake up early. Counterpoint: When you go out that evening, your friends will be perky and you will fall asleep in the bar, if you're me.

d) There's no minimum time commitment for volunteering with DC area clinics. Commitment-phobes welcome.

e) No papercuts.

f) It will make you even more pro-choice. Even if you just go to a short volunteer training, you'll feel smarter and angrier about clinic harassment.

If you are in the DC area and want to become a clinic escort, contact the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force. If you are elsewhere, join FMF's Adopt-a-Clinic campaign and email campusteam (at) feminist (dot) org for help finding a provider. Comment below and let us know how you're supporting your friendly local abortion provider!

Photo of crisis-pregnancy-center-mobile: j-No on Flickr

Join our Adopt-a-Clinic Campaign!

It's not news that our comprehensive women's health clinics have been facing an escalated amount of anti-choice harassment and violence. With the election of a pro-choice president, the anti-abortion forces have vowed a "return to the streets" and upped their terrorism, evidenced by the 40 days for life campaign that just ended and the tragic murder of Dr. George Tiller last May. These anti-abortion extremists are creating barriers for women to access reproductive health care services, as if women didn't have enough to worry about in terms of reproductive justice.

To combat their efforts, we are calling on you to make the difference. The CHOICES Campus Leadership Program would like to present its newest campaign. Introducing the Adopt-a-Clinic Campaign! Download the kit here and here.

We are urging you and your feminist group to adopt your local reproductive health clinic. We want your group to be able to provide support for embattled clinics in response to the recent escalation in anti-choice violence and harassment. By adopting your local clinic, you will help improve law enforcement response to anti-abortion harassment, bolster the morale of your clinic and its staff, and bring anti-choice bullies to the attention of your local community.

What does it mean to adopt a clinic? You first start out contacting your local comprehensive women’s health clinic. If you need help, contact your local Campus Organizer. Then you must find out the kind of help the clinic wants. It may be volunteering at the clinic or escorting patients; it depends on what your clinic needs.

Check out the new kit and contact your local clinic today! Show your thanks to the courageous abortion providers who save women’s lives every day. Your support means a lot to them. Contact your Campus Organizer to start the campaign. Call us at 866-444-3652(East Coast) or 866-471-3652 (West Coast).

A small group can make a huge difference. Do your part today!

This article was featured in our April 2010 monthly Choices eZine. Sign up for our alerts to stay up-to-date with the latest feminist news and to receive the monthly eZine!

Case Western FMLA changes mind, chooses life

Just kidding. The FMLA at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland is decidedly not pregnant. April Fool's!

We're encouraging feminist students groups to raise awareness about CPCs throughout April. So to commemorate April Fool's Day, CWRU FMLA distributed fliers on campus encouraging students facing unintended pregnancies not to be deceived anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers offering free health care. The FMLA suggested nearby comprehensive women's health clinics students could visit instead.

Check out the fliers they handed out, using tips FMF organizer Jacqueline posted:













and

Students who may be pregnant need to see professional health care providers, whether or not they plan to carry a pregnancy to term. CPCs just offer anti-abortion volunteers in lab coats waving an ultrasound wand at you and dispensing quack medical advice. Which would you choose?

Even worse, the thousands of CPCs across the country vastly outnumber real women's clinics, and they receive thousands of dollars in state and federal funding. College health centers include local crisis pregnancy center information in their pregnancy referrals.

If there are CPCs in your area and/or advertising on campus, check out FMF's Campaign to Expose Fake Clinics. It's easy to get on board, and you can contact an FMF campus organizer for more tips and suggestions. Our goal is to ensure women around the country know CPCs do not provide factual medical information, petition health centers to list CPCs as anti-abortion organizations in their referral resources, and to cut off government funding for these fake clinics.

To the Case FMLA and all the feminist groups working to expose fake clinics: keep up the great prochoice work and let us know how you're supporting comprehensive clinics!

This article was featured in our April 2010 monthly Choices eZine. Sign up for our alerts to stay up-to-date with the latest feminist news and to receive the monthly eZine!

40 days for life is back at it again

Hello feminist activists,

As an FMF intern and Cal State LA FMLA member, I’m back blogging about a crucial issue that is near and dear to my heart. Anti-choice organizers are at it again – as its kick-off campaign for 2010, 40daysfor(so-called) life fanatics are harassing women out in front of local comprehensive women’s health and Planned Parenthood clinics from February 16 – March 28th. And these anti-abortion zealots are targeting womyn’s health care providers in 167 cities across the country. For a complete list of the clinics they are harassing with protest, you may visit their anti-abortion website here: http://www.40daysforlife.com/location.cfm. (Please note: this is an anti-choice website.)

This campaign of fear and intimidation makes it all the more important for us as students to develop meaningful relationships with comprehensive womyn’s health care providers in our communities. If you haven’t yet, now is the time to find out who your providers are and to reach out to help them and offer to help.

Because many anti-abortion protesters like to demean and harass every and any person looking to enter a womyn’s health center, a positive, safe, pro-choice presence outside targeted clinics can help support patients and clinic employees. I have seen these people in action firsthand as a pro-choice advocate, activist and clinic defender. Their actions against womyn’s clinics and the patients they serve are outrageous. This is why we as students need to step up and out to protect and support our local clinics. And this is why the FMF’s Choices Campus Leadership Program is launching its new Adopt-A- Clinic Program.

It is equally important to work with your clinic in the ways they want your help – whether they need help with clinic escorting, legal observing, or if they simply need more clinic volunteers.
I hope all you this month will take it upon yourselves to each out to your local womyn’s health clinics and offer to help where it is needed. Especially since March 10th is National Abortion Providers Appreciation Day! Help stop anti-abortion harassment and defend our right to choose. We should always remember to trust womyn and their bodies!

Frank Perez, FMF CHOICES intern

Where do they find these people???

Hello my fellow activist,

I found some videos that I would love to share with you. I feel that these serve as a reminder of the ignorance that is consuming much of the American population presently. We can definitely see that people are not doing their homework before protesting on these key issues. Ignorance, like this, is running rampant in our country today.


40 Days for Life is an anti-abortion organization whose campaigns encourage anti-abortion extremists to lay siege to Planned Parenthoods and other womyn's health care clinics across the country. Their next campaign will be running Feb. 17th through March 28th. 40daysforlife is their website where you can find out more information about their campaign and the exact clinics they will be demonstrating at - harassing patients, doctors and staff and distributing false information. I used this site as a guide to set up pro-choice counter protests and organized clinic defenses, so it can be used as a tool to fight injustice. If a clinic near you is on their target list, call the clinic and ask how you can help!

Stay tuned for the FMF's new Adopt-a-Clinic Campaign kit which can help guide your efforts to support your local women's health care providers.



This organization, God Hates Fags, promotes ignorance and intolerance with large public displays and deplorable slogans on their signs. God Hates Fags is their site that shows their schedule of hateful demonstrations and tactics. This also can be used as a tool to organize counter protests and organize community members around fighting this brand of intolerance and ignorance.

I hope that these videos and websites will not only fuel your passion to fight for social justice in America but also give you an idea of where to organize and focus your protest efforts. The time for action is now! Let's unite in solidarity and organize on campuses to show that we are pro-choice and pro-equality!

Frank Perez

Celebrate the Anniversary of Roe v. Wade on January 22nd

January 22, 2010 marks the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that guaranteed American women the right to a safe and legal elective abortion. Our fore-feminists dedicated their lives to obtaining this integral human right and it is not free from threats, even today. To commemorate the fight for the right to abortion and to stand up against current attacks on that right, take action on January 22nd!

History
Abortion has been performed in every culture and society for thousands of years. It wasn't until the mid to late 1800's that abortion was criminalized in the U.S. Of course, making abortion illegal didn’t stop it from happening, or even reduce the number of women who sought abortion.

It is estimated that as many as 1.2 million abortions happened each year in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These “back-alley” abortions by untrained practitioners, in addition to self-induced abortions often cost women their lives – in fact, many thousands of women died or suffered serious medical problems during the time that abortion was illegal (accurate records could not be kept).

Thankfully, in 1973, Jane Roe, a Texas woman seeking to terminate her pregnancy, brought a class action lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Texas law prohibiting her from doing so and the Supreme Court sided with her, 7-2. Delivering the opinion of the Court, Justice Blackmum stated:

“The right to privacy…is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. The detriment that the State would impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice is altogether apparent.”

Abortion rights proponents rejoiced.

Right v. Access
Unfortunately, the Roe v. Wade decision was not perfect, by any means. The wording of the decision left doors open for states to regulate abortion through restrictions on third-trimester abortions, parental consent and notification laws, “informed consent” laws, waiting periods, refusal or so-called “conscience” clauses, and even spousal consent laws (which were later made illegal with the Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling in 1992).

Additionally, Roe v. Wade sent anti-abortion forces into a tizzy (just as its anniversary does every year), and in 1977 we saw the passing of the Hyde Amendment, which, to this day, prohibits Medicaid funding of abortions.

What’s the significance of all these various types of restrictions? Well, abortion may be legal, but it is not necessarily accessible or affordable. This distinction persists today, varying state by state. If you are under age 18, don’t have a provider near you, don’t have transportation, are a victim of incest or rape and don’t want to come forward, don’t have health insurance or don’t have the means to pay for an abortion, we’re sorry – the right to abortion doesn’t apply to you.

Furthermore, for several decades, anti-abortion forces have mounted escalating attacks on reproductive health clinics and health care providers throughout the nation, making access to the very clinics that provide reproductive health services even more difficult.

Continued Threats
While abortion remains legal, there are constantly rising threats jeopardizing access.

Currently, abortion has become a major divisive issue in Congress’ Health Care Reform efforts. By using women’s health and lives as a pawn to stop health care reform from happening, opponents of both reform and reproductive rights have managed to introduce some very restrictive abortion language – the Nelson amendment. By requiring separate payment systems for abortion coverage in the new health insurance exchange, the Nelson amendment will effectively eliminate abortion coverage for all women participating in the exchange – forcing millions of women who currently enjoy abortion coverage to pay out of pocket in the future.

Year after year, voters in referendum states are faced with anti-abortion ballot initiatives and state legislatures consider and often pass bills that limit abortion access. We see these bills and ballot initiatives in the form of: abortion bans (that are placed on the books in order to challenge Roe v. Wade), biased counseling requirements, mandatory delays, gag rules, refusal clauses, restrictions on low-income women’s access, restrictions on young women’s access, personhood initiatives and targeted regulation of abortion providers. In the fall 2010 mid-term election, don’t be surprised to see plenty of the above-mentioned threats present on your ballot!

And lastly, anti-abortion organizations such as Operation Rescue, Army of God and many others are creating a rising tide of extremism and violence against women’s health care clinics and providers. You may be familiar with the “Justice for All” or “Genocide Awareness Project” displays that often set up shop on college campuses. You also may have seen anti-abortion protesters outside of your local clinic. In addition to spreading lies and misinformation and making access to clinics difficult and intimidating, anti-abortion efforts often go far beyond protests and demonstrations and begin to threaten the safety and lives of women’s health care providers and clinic staff. Sometimes these threats escalate into real violence, as with the murder of Dr. George Tiller in his church in May, 2009.

What You Can Do on Jan. 22
On January 22nd, TAKE ACTION! Educate your campus, show support for abortion rights and the feminists who fought for that right, and fight the current threats we face. Let 'em know that we will never go back! Here are some ideas:

- Oppose the Nelson Amendment and show your support for woman-friendly health care reform. Find out how your Senators voted and let them know how you feel. Table with information on this issue and encourage other students to contact their Senators as well.

- Start gearing up for the onslaught of anti-choice ballot initiatives we are likely to see in this fall’s mid-term elections. Parental notification and personhood initiatives will likely be prevalent. Find out what’s likely to happen in your state, and begin educating your campus about why they should vote NO!

- Find out if there will be any anti-choice protests, demonstrations or events happening on campus and organize a counter-protest. Pass out medically accurate information about abortion, as well as information about the local reproductive health clinic.

- Adopt-a-Clinic. Call your local reproductive health clinic and find out how you can help them. They may be faced with protesters and need your help escorting patients into the clinic safely, showing your support through a rally or counter-protest, or just need your volunteer time in the clinic.

This article was featured in our January 2010 monthly Choices eZine. Sign up for our alerts to stay up-to-date with the latest feminist news and to receive the monthly eZine.