Archive for the 'Abortion' Category

Choices, Culture, and Pressure: some thoughts on why pregnant teens make the decisions they do

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 02, 2008
in Abortion, Family, Youth and Youth ministry
. 19 Comments

This is not a post about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy, nor is it a post about the failures of abstinence-only education. It is not a commentary on the suitability of Sarah Palin for the office of vice-president.

Glendon Brown wrote a post about choice yesterday, a post in which he linked to this old piece of mine. In Glendon’s offering he makes the case that Sarah Palin needs to answer a simple question:

Given the real world experiences that have shown that abstinence-only education doesn’t work, what policies would you pursue that would actually reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies?” We could even ask, “How would your policies help 17 year old girls who don’t want to be parents?”

Worthy questions.

Glendon made me re-read my own post about choosing abortion. I was a senior in high school, and my girlfriend a year behind me when she got pregnant. I was 17, just as Bristol Palin is now. Both my girlfriend and I told our parents soon after we discovered that she was pregnant, and we asked for their support and advice. Presumably, Bristol Palin did the same thing.

The reason I write about this today is not to question Bristol’s choice to keep the child or to marry the future baby’s father. And no, nearly a quarter-century after I accompanied my girlfriend to the doctor’s office for an abortion on a warm June Saturday morning, I am not second-guessing a decision that we made jointly. What I’m thinking about today is the role that parents and culture play in shaping the reproductive decisions that adolescents make.

The Palins presumably taught Bristol she should be abstinent until she was married. She ended up pregnant at 17. My high-school girlfriend, whom I’ll call “Mary”, and I were raised by liberal parents, parents who encouraged us to use contraception when and if we chose to have intercourse. The Palins are evangelical conservatives; Mary and I were raised by atheist progressives who donated to Planned Parenthood. And the end result was the same: the daughter of the fundamentalist and the daughter of the progressive each ended up with an unintended pregnancy. No ideology, no theology, and no amount of parental love is a perfect prophylaxis against gettin’ knocked up. Human experience bears out that truth with abundant evidence.

Though I flirted with the idea of asking Mary to keep the pregnancy and give the baby up for adoption, I knew that that wasn’t what she wanted. Neither of us wanted to get married, and neither of us even considered the possibility of raising the child together. There were many reasons why abortion was chosen, but perhaps one reason among many was that we both came from families where that was the preferred option. I know that Mary’s mother would have been devastated if her daughter had put off her college plans in order to have a child; my family would have been equally upset. If we had polled our extended families (we didn’t), the consensus would have been that abortion was the “least worst” option. Continue reading ‘Choices, Culture, and Pressure: some thoughts on why pregnant teens make the decisions they do’

On motherhood, choice, and the celebration of Agata Mroz

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 07, 2008
in Abortion, Christianity, Faith, Parenting and Sports
. 18 Comments

UPDATED Reminder about comments policy:

This comment thread is open to feminists and those who are feminist-friendly only. Thread-derailing to advance an anti-feminist agenda has no place here. I’ve been remiss in enforcing this recently, but am going to be better about it out now.

On the Fourth of July, KJ Lopez at the National Review Online offered up what she calls “A Good Girl Role Model”. (One assumes, after reading the piece and being familiar with K-Lo’s work, that the adjective “good” modifies “girl” rather than “role model”. Lopez is from that school of social conservatives who wish fervently that there were more “good girls” — in the classic sense — running around. Or, better yet in the right-wing world, not running around.)

Lopez tells us the story of Agata Mroz, a former Polish volleyball star who died of leukemia shortly after giving birth.

When Agata was 17, she was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a collection of disorders that prevent the bone marrow from producing sufficient blood cells. Some forms of MDS progress to leukemia, and Agata’s did. In the prime of her sports career, Agata needed to take a sabbatical in 2007 to fight the disease. The first part of her treatment involved many blood transfusions. When her fans discovered that she needed blood, they formed a queue to be donors, giving 3,170 pints.

Her condition worsened as she was preparing to marry Jacek Olszewski on June 9, 2007, leaving her too ill to go on a honeymoon. Because of her illness, doctors cautioned her against getting pregnant, but she tried anyway. She was realistic about her slim prospects to beat the disease and, if she were going to die, she at least hoped to be able to give life.

She became pregnant soon after marrying. “The news about the child made me feel lucky again,” she said in a February news interview. “I felt happy that I would know what it is to be a mother and that I would give my husband something good of myself.”

A few weeks later, doctors discovered her cancer had progressed. They told her that she urgently needed a bone marrow transplant, but she opted to wait until after delivery to receive the transplant lest she imperil her child’s life. She clearly knew the risk she was taking, but considered the reward worth the danger, putting her child’s life above her own. She gave premature birth to a daughter, Lilliana, on April 4.

Agata died on June 4.

It’s a bittersweet story. Who among us would question Agata’s decision? She did what she wanted to do, making a conscious choice to get pregnant despite the huge risk and to forego lifesaving treatment in order to ensure her daughter’s well-being. I honor that choice as a good and valid one. I was moved reading the account Lopez shares.

But what is so infuriating is the clear sense that Agata’s decision wasn’t a choice, but a spiritual requirement for any woman who might find herself in a similar tragic predicament. For Lopez — and indeed, for many Catholics, a woman is required to put the life of her unborn child ahead of her own. It isn’t so much a “choice” as a divine mandate. Lopez’s piece concludes:

In his homily, the celebrant of the Mass, Bishop Marian Florczyk, said that Agata’s life is a witness of “love of life, motherhood, the desire to give life and the heroic love of an unborn child.”

It is all that. I’m not raining on Agata’s parade, of course. But Lopez doesn’t entitle her piece “A Mother’s Choice”. She calls it “A Good Girl Role Model”, driving home the point that young women ought to aspire to be as radically selfless as Agata to the point of de-valuing their own lives. Continue reading ‘On motherhood, choice, and the celebration of Agata Mroz’

The troubled Sanger legacy: some thoughts on Planned Parenthood

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 03, 2008
in Abortion, Feminism and Race
. 19 Comments

Last week, the topic of Planned Parenthood – and its historically uneasy relationship with women of color — came up again. Feministing covered the story of what happened in Idaho; a caller pretending to be a white racist phoned in to the local Planned Parenthood office, offering a donation “because the less black babies, the better.” Instead of telling him off, the PP employee — who happened to be the VP of Development for Idaho — laughed nervously, but accepted the donation with the reply that the caller’s concern was “understandable.” Of course, the call was a set-up, done by a group of activists eager to expose what they believe to be a pattern of racist practices by the nation’s largest organization dedicated to ensuring access to reproductive care.

There was also a heated exchange, much of it now taken down, between blogger Apostate and Guyanese Terror (BlackAmazon). I’m trying to piece together what happened (having, as usual, come late to the debate) but it seems as if BlackAmazon made a brief reference to the racist legacy of Planned Parenthood, and that earned Apostate’s ire. Reading through the near-100 comments at Feministing, you can get a brief primer, replete with links, about the issue of Planned Parenthood and an-often problematic relationship with women of color.

I teach an introduction to women’s history course, as my readers know. I don’t teach a “great woman” theory of history, preferring instead to emphasize social and cultural developments that impacted women’s lives over the past four centuries. But I know that my students are hungry for heroes, and like many feminists, I offer Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) as one for the class to consider. Sanger, of course, coined the phrase “birth control” nearly a century ago. She founded the Birth Control League, which eventually morphed into Planned Parenthood. She played a key role in advocating for the development of oral contraceptives, and lived long enough to see Second Wave feminism flourish and the Pill hit the market. Arrested and jailed for her advocacy, she spent over half a century fighting for the fundamental right of women everywhere to be autonomous over their own flesh. It’s a stirring story. Continue reading ‘The troubled Sanger legacy: some thoughts on Planned Parenthood’

Grief, Remorse, and Judgment: the myth of a “right response’ to abortion

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 28, 2008
in Abortion, Christianity, Divorce, Favorite Posts 2008 and Feminism
. 51 Comments

In response to my post on Tuesday, I got an e-mail from a reader who wrote that while she had come to the point where she no longer believed in banning abortion, she still considered herself pro-life. Reflecting on how she had been raised (in a conservative Christian household), she noted that she had always been taught that women who undergo abortion will invariably experience regret and depression. Faced with the reality that that is not always the case, my reader writes that she finds it harder not to judge women who don’t experience regret.

One of the hallmarks of traditional sexism is its insistence that “good women” feel certain feelings and not others. “Good girls” are expected to be interested in romance, but not in sex — especially not the latter when it is disconnected from the former. Good girls are allowed, even encouraged, to daydream about marrying their handsome boyfriends; they are discouraged (via shame) from lusting after the hot water polo players in their Speedos. These messages about what the right emotions are for women (compassion, tenderness, romantic longing) and what the wrong emotions are (ambition, horniness, anger) are taught early, usually long before puberty. And the grip of this dichotomy of good and bad feelings can be intense, lingering for a lifetime, passed on to the next generation.

I know a lot of folks who feel as my reader does. In this world view, shaped both by sexism and popular Christian teaching, remorse and regret are prerequisites for forgiveness and understanding. A young woman who has had an abortion will have no trouble finding sympathy in even the most conservative circles if she says the right words. For example, this will do nicely:

“Oh, I was so confused and scared! I had no idea what to do. I I just wanted it all to be over with, and I had nowhere else to go, so I called up the clinic and I went and ‘took care of it.’ I cried afterwards for hours; it hurt so much. At first I felt numb, and then I felt relief, and then I felt this awful sense that I had done something terrible. Every day I ask God to forgive me. I regret it so much, and I wonder if I’ll ever stop feeling so horrible.”

Say that in private — or better yet, tearfully in front of the congregation — and you can expect the outpouring of warmth and forgiveness given to a Prodigal Daughter. The pastor will use you as an example, mingling admonition with a reminder about God’s grace and a wildly inappropriate but inevitable reference to Rachel the Matriarch weeping for her children. Folks will hug you and pat you and say soothing words. “We’re praying for you, sweetheart.” “Jesus loves you.” “You are forgiven.” “Thank you for speaking out; you may have saved another girl’s baby today.” And on and on it goes. Continue reading ‘Grief, Remorse, and Judgment: the myth of a “right response’ to abortion’

Grieving the best choice

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 26, 2008
in Abortion, Youth and Youth ministry
. 24 Comments

Certain sectors of the pro-life blogosphere are spreading this sad story from Cornwall: Artist hanged herself after aborting her twins.

Carol Platt Liebau, a card-carrying member of the “the exposure of thong underwear by teenage girls is a sign of the Apocalypse” wing of the American right, writes:

When pro-choices (sic) discuss how many women die with “back alley abortions,” somehow deaths like these never seem to be counted.

Gosh, possibly because they fall into two separate categories?

With one or two exceptions, virtually every thoughtful voice for reproductive options understands that in some cases, abortion can have a significant emotional impact on the women who choose it. I am well aware from my own experience that the men who helped conceive that which was aborted can, on occasion, feel very real grief. (It is February; had my high-school girlfriend and I not chosen an abortion, I would have a twenty-two year-old celebrating his or her birthday this month. I think of that often). It simply isn’t true that the majority of what Liebau calls “pro-choices” don’t acknowledge that pain, sadness, and depression can follow an abortion. (We also point out that pain, sadness, and depression can follow the birth of a child, too. Post-partum depression in mothers is very real, and the religious right would likely not wish to employ it as an argument against human reproduction.)

We can experience real grief over a choice we’ve made while being immensely grateful to have had that choice in the first place. Divorce is, in this instance, similar to abortion. No one has sex saying “Gosh, I hope I get pregnant so I can find out what an abortion is like!” No one gets married saying, “Oooh, I can’t wait to go through the heartbreak of dividing up the Christmas ornaments and deciding who keeps the dog!” In my all-too-abundant experience, divorce proved to be the least-worst option in my first three marriages. It was not an option exercised with joy, but with a strange mix of deep sadness and immense relief. Continue reading ‘Grieving the best choice’

“Addled, deceived, and confused”: Neuhaus on women who seek abortion

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 11, 2007
in Abortion, Feminism and Youth
. 83 Comments

This past summer, both Anna Quindlen and Jill Filipovic posed a question for the pro-life community: assuming that abortion is someday outlawed in this country, how much time in prison should a woman who obtains an abortion receive? (I can find the link to Jill’s piece, but not Quindlen’s.) It’s an important question to ask of those who seek to outlaw abortion; nothing can be banned, after all, without criminalizing those who flout the ban. And it forces those who support making abortion illegal to be honest about their long-term intentions.
Jill wrote:

How much time should doctors do?

Do you support executing doctors who perform abortions?

Do you support jailing them for life? For a few decades?

How do we justify prosecuting doctors for performing abortions, but not the women who pay them to perform the abortion? Are there other situations in which a person can pay another person to commit an illegal act — an illegal act that allegedly takes a human life — and not be held culpable?

What about women who self-induce their own abortions, without the aid of a doctor? Do they qualify as illegal abortionists? Should they be prosecuted?

How can it possibly be legally (or even morally) consistent to attach full rights to a fetus and then treat its death as somehow less important, or different, than the death of a born person? Is a fetus’s death less important, or different, than the death of a born person?

I write about this today because Richard John Neuhaus throws out an answer in the January ‘08 issue of First Things (available online only to subscribers). Neuhaus:

Quindlen goes on to contend that, if pro-­lifers were consistent, they would demand that the woman procuring the abortion, along with the abortionist, would be criminally prosecuted. “State statutes that propose punishing only a physician suggest that the woman was merely some addled bystander who ­happened to find herself in the wrong stirrups at the wrong time.” Certainly not a bystander. Addled perhaps, as in confused, conflicted, conscience-stricken—and deceived by the addled arguments advanced by such as Anna Quindlen. The abortionist, on the other hand, knows what he is doing in his chosen line of work. As has been said ten thousand times over, in an abortion there are two victims: the child and the woman.

Bold emphasis mine.

I always enjoy reading Neuhaus, and am often provoked and challenged by how well he makes the case for his deeply reactionary views. But he falls down badly here. First of all, last time I checked, a great many doctors are women — Neuhaus’ use of the male pronoun here is not accidental, as it suits his weltanschauung to imagine that most physicians performing abortions are men. I sense it’s easier to imagine jailing the doctors who perform abortions when our imagination tells us that they are middle-aged white men presumably just “in it for the buck.” Continue reading ‘“Addled, deceived, and confused”: Neuhaus on women who seek abortion’

Abortion, race, and “family language”: some notes on the Claremont talk

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 15, 2007
in Abortion and Feminism
. 24 Comments

Last Thursday afternoon, I drove out to Claremont Graduate University. I’d been asked to give a talk on feminism and race as part of an ongoing lecture series sponsored by the Cultural Studies Department at CGU.

I like leaving my own campus to give lectures. As a good ENFP, I enjoy meeting new people — and, truth be told, these opportunities (which come two or three times a year) allow me to fantasize that I am some sort of public intellectual.

I was nervous about speaking last Thursday, however, as I feared the talk I intended to give might not fit with the needs or expectations of my audience. You see, “cultural studies” scares me. Theorists unnerve me. When I was an undergrad taking my first upper-division women’s studies course, I had to read what was then the French feminist “trinity”: Cixous, Irigaray, Kristeva. I found the writing nearly impenetrable, and said so. I used the word “impenetrable” without thinking, and — since I was the only man in the class — unintentionally set off a long discussion about “phallic language.” One classmate memorably told me that “feminist theory needs to offer impenetrability as a defense against patriarchal ‘rape’ culture.” I was chastened and overwhelmed.

In graduate school, I ran into lots of people who wanted to talk about another French trinity, this time a male one: Levi-Strauss, Lacan, and Foucault. Obediently, I read as much as I could understand of their works, and even joined a field trip down to Irvine to hear the old rascal himself, Jacques Derrida, say deep things. But I tired of the jargon and of what seemed to me to be a great deal of “analysis paralysis.” Endless discussions of “textuality” bored me to tears — and at times, made me doubt whether I belonged in a Ph.D. program of any kind. Perhaps I was just a bear of very little brain, but listening to my classmates read papers with titles like “Mapping the margins: textuality and transgression in early-modern cartography” (I’m not making that up) made my head hurt. A lot.

Now that I think about it, a lot of my mild Francophobia is rooted in miserable graduate seminar experiences,the sort where we spent three hours on a Friday afternoon talking about French theorists — in French. (My French was always lousy, and I was usually lost. The seminars were officially bilingual, and we read things in French and discussed them in English, but most of my fellow graduate students had far more mastery of that vowel-saturated tongue than I did.).

By the way, I’m really happy England beat France in the Rugby World Cup.

Anyhoo, this explains my trepidation about my talk last Thursday. Continue reading ‘Abortion, race, and “family language”: some notes on the Claremont talk’

Remaining conflicted on abortion

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 22, 2007
in Abortion, Faith, Feminism, Memories and Politics
. 21 Comments

Today marks the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and is being marked by interested folks all across the political spectrum. Many pro-choice feminists are “blogging for choice”, and many pro-lifers are participating in marches and offering their own blog thoughts.

This most heart-rending of cultural issues continues to cause division and heartache, and perhaps rightly so. If we are going to fight with each other, it is perhaps good that we fight over something as viscerally important as abortion. What could matter more?

I’m not blogging for choice or blogging for life. As I’ve written before, I got my high-school girlfriend pregnant, and went through the abortion process with her. Had she — we — kept the child that we conceived, he or she would be turning 21 next week. That thought is very much in my mind today. I don’t regret the decision we made, but I grieve it. The absence of regret and the presence of heartache are not mutually exclusive. Not on this issue.

Mind you, I have a long history of activism — on both sides. I’ve marched with Planned Parenthood, and prayed with Operation Rescue. I’ve given to NARAL and Feminists for Life. And no, dear detractors, I’m not so confused that I’ve done both at the same time! But I’ve journeyed a lot on this issue, and it remains an immensely painful one for me. I have been bold enough to stake out some strong views on other issues, but on this one, I remain silent. I remain conflicted. The conflict is honest; it’s not a disingenuous attempt to please all sides at once. It is the one issue where I see and feel both sides of the argument so intensely that I am truly intellectually incapacitated by ambivalence. And thus, I don’t blog abortion.

I don’t believe this kind of uncertainty is virtuous! Indeed, it’s as frustrating to me as it is to my friends who want to pin me down. I long for the days when I was so damn sure what the right thing to do was! I pray regularly for God to give me the gift of clarity. It has come on many issues, but not on this one.

I am praying that all those who do wage battle on this issue continue to see the decency and the humanity in those on the other side. I am praying for a world where every child conceived will be healthy and wanted. It’s just that I remain painfully uncertain about how best to achieve that end.

An Updated Reprint: No on 85, and some reasons why

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 24, 2006
in Abortion, Family, Feminism and Politics
. 9 Comments

With my hiatus fast coming to an end, I’m doing a second reprint today. 

This fall, for the second time in a year, Californians will be voting on a "parental notification inititative."  Last year, it was Proposition 73; this year, it’s Prop. 85.  I reluctantly voted "no" on 73 last year, and it was narrowly defeated.  My position has not changed, and so I’m reproducing my post from last fall here.  The links within it have been updated:

REPRINT: I’m about to surprise myself, disappoint some, and please others.

I’ve been reflecting on the various ballot propositions facing California voters in the November 8 special election.  Most of the initiatives don’t require much thought for me; what Arnold Schwarzenegger calls reform I call an attack on organized labor and the vulnerable whom we serve.  I’ll be voting "no" on every one of Arnold’s proposals, in keeping with my (often tepid) support for my union.

The only proposition that has caused me some agony is Proposition 85, which would mandate parental notification before a minor undergoes an abortion.   It’s important to note, of course, that the initiative, if passed, would not require parental consent — only notification.

Here’s the No on 85 site.

Here’s the Yes on 85 site.

I’m not yet a father.  But I am a volunteer youth worker who has spent half a dozen years mentoring teenagers, so it’s not as if I don’t have my own strong emotional response to the issue.  And if I go with my initial instinct, I’m inclined to support the initiative.  If I were a Dad, I would want my daughter to come to me.  I would, I imagine, be hurt and bewildered if she felt she couldn’t.   And my fear that my daughter might not come to me of her own volition makes me sympathetic to the idea that she ought to be compelled to do so by the state.

As I reflect more, however, I’m filled with sadness.  As someone who still struggles to embrace the consistent-life ethic, I grieve the tragedy of abortion.  I long for a world where underage teenage girls didn’t get pregnant, period — either because they chose not to have sex, or because in conjunction with their partners, they successfully used contraceptives.  I’m sure that almost everyone on both sides of the abortion divide shares that wish!  But we don’t live in such a world, not yet.  And in this world where teens are having sex and will continue to have sex, many without contraception, what are we to do?

When I was 17 and a high school senior, I got my girlfriend pregnant.  We were both underage; we were young and scared.  In the desperate days and weeks after we confirmed that she was pregnant, she and I talked of many things.  We briefly fantasized about getting married and having the child, but quickly abandoned that idea.  Both of us were eager for college, eager for independence, and knew enough to know that we were utterly unready for the awesome responsibilities of marriage and children.  More seriously, we reflected on whether or not my girlfriend should carry the pregnancy to term and then give the child up for adoption.  To be completely honest, that was my wish.  But it wasn’t my decision to make, nor should it have been.  After all, my body wasn’t pregnant.  I wouldn’t finish out high school "showing"; I wouldn’t have college delayed a year by carrying a baby.  I wouldn’t have to go through what must be the unspeakably difficult task of giving a child you’ve carried for nine months up for adoption.  And so, with many tears and much trembling, we decided on abortion.

I can tell you that we both told our parents.  We told them after we had made the decision, but before the procedure took place.  She and I were both blessed with parents who didn’t lecture us!  Neither of us got the "What were you thinking?" speech, nor the "I’m so disappointed in you" lecture.  I’m grateful for that.  My mother knew — and my ex-girlfriend’s mother knew — that we had already beat ourselves up far more than was necessary.  We didn’t need a guilt trip, we needed support, and we got it.

The abortion was done in a doctor’s office in Monterey on a warm spring Saturday morning I will never forget: June 22, 1985. I sat in the waiting room with my girlfriend’s mother, trying to read a magazine.  Afterwards, her mom took her home to sleep the day away.  I went for a walk on the beach, alternating between guilty tears and an extraordinary numbness.  Had things been different, the child that would have been born (the due date, we were told, was February 8, 1986) would be a sophomore in college this year — the same age as many of my students. 

But I know so well that she and I were lucky in our parents!  It would be absurd to assume that every teenager has a mother or father who will respond with reassurance, unconditional love, and support.  I wish that it were so.  Frankly, I think some teens might be surprised by the depths of understanding that their parents might display if they took the risk to tell them! I certainly feared recriminations before telling my parents; I was incredibly relieved that I didn’t get them. 

I do wonder what we would have done had we known that the law required us to inform our parents.  (Technically, this would only have applied to my girlfriend, but to my marginal credit, I was in complete solidarity with her in the whole process.)  We might have gone ahead and told them so that we could comply with the order.  Or we might have searched for someone willing to perform an abortion without the notification requirement.   Had we had different parents, had we had more reasonable fears of rage and rejection, we might well have looked for someone who could be convinced to terminate the pregnancy without involving moms and dads.  I am fairly certain that a great many young girls will seek out less-scrupulous abortion providers for exactly this reason.

Do I want to see an end to abortion in this country?  Yes.  Am I willing to advocate for laws to restrict access to abortion to adults or minors? No.    Despite my own history, I’ve flirted in the past with supporting anti-abortion regulation.  My faith informs me that all life is equally precious, including life in the womb.  But with great heaviness of heart, I’ve come to agree that it’s destructive and pointless to try and end abortion legislatively. When we were teenagers more than twenty years ago, my ex-girlfriend and I "weren’t thinking" when she got pregnant.  Frankly, whether or not abortion was legal and available had no impact on what we were doing together.  Hormones and infatuation are far more powerful than fear itself, at least for many teens.

When and if I have children, I want them to feel comfortable telling me anything.  If my daughter were pregnant, I would want to know.  Perhaps I would want her to keep the child, or choose adoption — though those would not be my decisions to make.  But even greater than my desire to know, I would want her to be safe.  Ultimately, it wouldn’t be about me, but about her and her needs.  And if for some reason she felt she couldn’t tell me or her mother, I would want her to be able to turn to medical professionals.

In my capacity as a youth leader, I’ve known of a couple of girls over the years who had abortions; at least one told me but did not tell her parents.  (This was years ago, folks — if you’re associated with All Saints, don’t speculate.)  I was not the only adult who was informed, but though I expressed my hope to the young woman involved that she would eventually bring her parents into the process, I respected her decision not to do so.   Until I’m told that that’s unacceptable behavior for a volunteer youth minister, I will continue to assume that I am free to offer the same advice should a similar situation arise in the future.

Originally published September 27, 2005

UPDATE: Men favor Prop. 85 53% to 40%, while women are opposed 51% to 36%.   According to this month’s (August 2006) Field Poll, public opinion in California is evenly split on Prop 85 less than three months out from the election.  But the pollsters note a big gender divide: Men favor Prop. 85 53% to 40%, while women are opposed 51% to 36%.

Some thoughts on crisis pregnancy centers and telling the truth

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 01, 2006
in Abortion, Body, Christianity, Ethnicity, Faith and Feminism
. 35 Comments

It’s May Day, the start of a new week and a new month.  I’m hoping it will also usher in the return of  regular blogging from Hugo. 

Today is, of course, the national "Day Without an Immigrant".  It’s too early to tell whether large numbers of students here at PCC (the student body is made up largely of immigrants and their children) will participate by boycotting classes.  Given that I missed three out of four of my teaching days last week, and that I am far behind in the syllabus, I have no intention of cancelling class or of devoting lecture time to the subject. I’ll let readers know if my attendance is affected.

Amanda at Pandagon has an article on crisis pregnancy centers published at Alternet: Exposing Anti-Choice Abortion Clinics.  She sent me a link to it, and I’d like to take this opportunity to break my long-imposed hiatus from discussing abortion issues on this blog.

I’ve been struggling for years with my own feelings about abortion.  More than on any other issue, my faith and my feminism, my heart and my mind lead me to contradictory conclusions.  When I talk about it, I end up waffling and equivocating.  Unlike some Catholic Democratic senators, I’m not frantically trying to please two diametrically opposed groups; I know damn well my agonizing ends up annoying and, ultimately, alienating both pro-life and pro-choice activists.   I’d be far better off pretending that my views were more solidly on one side rather than another, and thus at least assuring myself of some allies!

I’m not yet ready to weigh in on the larger issue of whether or not abortion should be legal.  But I can write a bit about how troubled I have always been by the topic that Amanda addresses today: the deceptive tactics used by so many "crisis pregnancy centers." Here’s the website for Austin Life Care:

LifeCare Pregnancy Services is a non-profit pregnancy center committed to providing women and men with accurate, up-to-date information in order to make informed decisions about pregnancy, sexual health, and relationships.

Unlike Amanda, I’m very sympathetic to the goals of these crisis pregnancy centers.  Frankly, I’d like to see a great many more young women keep their babies and put them up for adoption, or commit to raising them themselves.  It’s why I’ve always supported greater private and public financial support for programs and institutions which make it more socially acceptable and economically viable for the young and the unintentionally pregnant to commit to raising their children.  Of course, I break completely with my friends in the pro-life camp over the issue of stigmatizing unwed motherhood!  I’ve always thought that ostracizing unwed mothers while opposing abortion was a disastrous contradiction; I know very well how shame is often a strong impetus to choose to terminate a pregnancy "before others find out."

While abortion remains legal and accessible, I feel strongly about supporting those organizations that offer alternatives to women who are interested in carrying a child to term and either arranging for an adoption or keeping their baby themselves.  There is surely a place in the market for groups that seek to reduce demand for abortion by making these alternatives more financially viable.  But I feel strongly that those of us who offer alternatives to abortion must be absolutely frank with our potential clients and their unborn children.  Pretending to offer abortion referrals, for example, is a heinous and indefensible abuse of the trust of women at a particularly vulnerable time in their lives.  I have never been able to support the work of those crisis centers that do not offer full and complete disclosure of their goals and agenda up front.

I know that many of my pro-life friends believe that when it comes to preventing abortion, ends are justified by means.  If the only way to get a baby saved is to pass off your clinic as one that actually offers abortion, they argue, it’s worth doing.  But as Christians (and almost everyone in the crisis pregnancy movement is Christian), we must remember that to follow Jesus is to match our language and our lives.  The means we use to accomplish any goal must be radically congruent with the ends we seek.  If we want to reach women with the truth that there are alternatives to abortion, we must be worthy of their trust.  How can a young, pregnant girl considering abortion trust an agency that misled her to get her in the door in the first place?  If we are going to commit — as we should — to helping young women discover options that honor life, we must do so candidly and openly.

If I were running a crisis pregnancy center, I’d use a slogan like this:

Confused about abortion?  Looking for alternatives? Crisis Pregnancy Center of Hicksville is here for you.  We are committed to you and to  your unborn baby.  Let us help you to find a way to make a choice that can give both you and your child the opportunity for a lifetime of happiness and possibility.

That, I think, would be honest and straightforward.  My pro-choice friends might still not like the insistence that every fetus is a human person worthy of life, but they would surely have far greater respect for us if we in the consistent-life camp would insist on truth in advertising in everything we do.

A peevish note about abortion marches and beauty contests

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 07, 2006
in Abortion, Feminism and Vanity
. 81 Comments

First off, I can report that my boxing technique has begun to improve exponentially.   Though my jump rope skills would not carry me far on an elementary school playground, they now permit me to get a real workout in.  Thanks to all who contributed advice last week!  I continue to enjoy hitting things, even if my training sessions now begin at 5:15AM. 

I’m trying to combine learning to box with training for the LA Marathon next month; I haven’t done the local race since 2001.  My friends and students always ask me, "Are you doing LA this year?"  And when I tell them about some other marathon, they look disappointed.  Like it or not, most non-running locals only connect mentally to the big Los Angeles Marathon.  So this year, I’ll be there.  As of this post, my goal is modest — I’d like to break 3:45 if possible…

Moving on:

From Feministing and Rachel at Alternet, I’ve learned about the "Battle of the Babes".  This pro-life site, reporting on last month’s "Walk for Life" march in San Francisco last month, offers a photographic essay to answer the burning question, "Which side has the best looking women?"  The author of the post offers a number of photos side by side, and doesn’t directly answer her own question — though her implication is clear: pro-lifers are cuter.

It’s an offensive strategy, regardless of intent.  It deliberately references the old canard that all feminists are ugly.  It would be laughable save for the fact that I’ve heard from more than one of my students over the years that fears of how their looks would be labeled kept them from calling themselves feminists.  One student told me a year or two ago, "If I say I’m a feminist, people will just say ‘That’s because you’re too ugly to get a man.’"  She spoke from experience, and her expression made it clear that the tired old line about feminism and undesirability had resonated with her and caused her genuine hurt.

But as angry as I am with the pro-life web page that ran the photos, I’m also angry with this bit of commentary from staunch feminist Rachel Neumann at Alternet.  She wrote of the pictures:

Yes, there’s something beautiful about the wild disarray of the reproductive rights activists compared to the scary silent uniformity of those who are supporting forced childbirth…

Talk about exchanging one stereotype for another!  If the right claims all feminists are ugly, is the best we can do in response is claim that pro-life women are all "silent", marching in "scary uniformity"?  I’ve been to plenty of marches on the abortion issue, and as those who know me well know, I’ve marched on both sides.  (Not on the same day, mind you.  I may be a mercurial ENFP Gemini, but even I maintain some consistency over a 24-hour period.  My ideological fluctuations happen with the regularity of, say, the Olympics.)  In those marches, I’ve noticed one thing: most of the marchers on both sides are women of reproductive age.  Women in their teens, twenties, and thirties always seem to constitute the majority in both the pro-life and pro-choice camps.  This is not surprising; they are the biggest stakeholders in the struggle over reproductive rights.  And Ms Neumann, pro-life women are not "silent"!  They chant and sing with the best of the pro-choicers.  They don’t march in uniformity either.   (Actually, no one ever really "marches" at these things.  But who would turn out for a more accurately billed "Stroll for Choice" or "Amble against Abortion"?)

What makes me angry is that even now in 2006, both sides are still trading the tired old epithets.  "Feminists are fat and ugly."  "Pro-life women are docile Stepford wives who can’t think for themselves."   As someone who has not only been on both sides of the issue, but has known and loved a great many women across this great emotional and ideological divide, these stereotypes infuriate and sadden me.  And what makes me angriest is that they both trade in the most pernicious lie of all: That a woman whose views on abortion are different from one’s own is somehow less of a woman.   Both Neumann and the pro-life blogger with her beauty contest are, wittingly or no, suggesting that their sisters on the other side of the issue have failed to grasp an essential component of what it means to be a woman.  In 2006, we shouldn’t have to say that pro-choice feminists are beautiful; we shouldn’t have to say that pro-life women are rational and autonomous.  But apparently, we still need to.

A note about student interest in abortion

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 24, 2006
in Abortion, Feminism and Teaching
. 22 Comments

It looks like the University of Florida is backing away from its poorly-worded policy that appeared to mandate sex between registered domestic partners.

I don’t have time for a long post, but did want to mention that in eleven years of teaching my Women in American Society class, I’ve noticed quite a fluctuation in student attitudes towards abortion and reproductive rights.  Every semester, I always ask my class to divide into groups, and come up with a list of what they agree are the three most pressing issues facing the contemporary feminist movement.  (We do this after the lecture on the Seneca Falls Convention  of 1848, where it’s clear that the three most pressing issues are the vote, the right to property, and the right to education.)

In the mid-1990s, ensuring abortion rights always came out on top as the number one priority.  My students seemed more uniformly liberal on such issues a decade or so ago.  But around the turn of the millennium, I began to notice two phenomena: first of all, the number of pro-life young women who still wanted to be called feminists was growing; second, the sense of urgency about protecting access to abortion seemed to be waning.  This was odd, of course — regardless of one’s politics, one would assume that that sense of urgency ought to have been increasing as we transitioned from the Clinton to the Bush administrations!  But I can remember a couple of semesters in 2001 and 2002 where my students wouldn’t even mention "choice" issues on their top three agenda items.  In those years, working to overcome media stereotypes about women and beauty always seemed to top the list, with equal pay just behind.  I began to wonder if abortion was something that my students thought of as irrelevant, an issue more important to their mothers’ generation than their own.  The conservative side of me was heartened by that apparent trend; the liberal side of me was worried.

But this 2006 winter intersession continues a different trend I first began to see a year ago — a renewed interest in seeing abortion as the defining  issue of the feminist movement.  The last three times I’ve asked the old question, "choice" has come back out on top.  More of my students are once again willing to define themselves as pro-choice, and — at least for now — the number of students identifying themselves as "feminists for life" seems to have retreated from its high water mark.  I know that even for my less well-informed students, coverage of the Supreme Court (and this week’s 33rd anniversary of Roe) has had an impact.  I also know that many of my pro-choice students were energized by last fall’s surprising defeat of Prop. 73, the "parental notification" initiative.

As someone who has famously complex and contradictory feelings about abortion, this all presents a challenge for me.   Though I am still, after all this time, trying to sort out my own feelings on the matter, I’m absolutely convinced that whether we like it or not, the struggle over abortion rights will remain the defining issue of our time.  Even when I try and soft-pedal the topic, a new generation of young women is reminding me that this is an issue that they regard as vital.   And though I continue to mull my own opinions, my students don’t need to hear me hash out my own beliefs.  They need a compelling narrative account of how and why we’ve arrived at this point, where the bodies of the young, the female, and the fertile — and the smaller bodies they have the potential to carry — remains the key social and cultural battleground of our time.

A final election note –UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 11, 2005
in Abortion, Politics and Youth
. 16 Comments

Not that I’m inviting flaming, but I am struck that my two most heart-felt posts on men and growing up have been largely ignored by my MRA critics. Not that I need you fellas to comment on everything I write, but the silence is nearly deafening.

One last special election note:  listening to right-wing talk radio, I hear over and over again that the outcome of Tuesday’s balloting can be explained by low voter turn-out by Republicans and conservatives.  I hear this especially about the failure of Proposition 73, the parental notification measure.  As is so often the case in defeat, the losing side continues to insist that a silent, non-voting majority really supports their side of things.  But the numbers don’t back that view.

Here are the voter turn-out percentages in five "liberal counties" that voted down 73:

Los Angeles: 41%
Monterey: 37.5%
Alameda: 44.6%
San Francisco: 41.1%
Santa Barbara: 42.5%

And five conservative counties that easily passed 73:

Placer: 52.7%
Orange: 41.5%
Fresno: 45%
Amador: 65% (highest in the state)
Kern: 41%

Looks about the same to me; the statewide average was a relatively high (for a special election) 43.1%; thus the liberal heartlands of Los Angeles and San Francisco were below the average, not well-above it! The only place conservatives had a poor showing was in the Inland Empire Southern California counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, but even those counties were heavily influenced by a growing Latino electorate, which was willing to support abortion restrictions but far more leery of the rest of the governor’s props.

Sorry, my GOP friends.  This wasn’t about turn-out — this election, even the vote on 73, seems to me to be a fairly accurate reflection of the center-left impulses of most Californians.

UPDATE:  One last last election note.  One newcomer who won election to the Pasadena City College Board of Trustees (the folks for whom, in some sense, I work) is Hilary Bradbury-Huang.   I knew she was backed by our union, and I was pleased she beat her Republican opponent, who had been on the PCC board since (believe it or not) 1977.  But what I didn’t know is that she’s a registered Green.   That makes me very, very happy.  When I first started teaching here, Republicans held all but one of the seats on the Board of Trustees; now they are in the minority.  Sweet.

More on the election aftermath, All Saints girls, and the IRS opportunity

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 10, 2005
in Abortion, All Saints Pasadena, Christianity, Environmentalism, Politics, Youth and Youth ministry
. 10 Comments

Several things.

1.  It’s a morning of continued good news; AP reports:

A solid phalanx of Republican moderates drove House GOP leaders to drop a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wilderness area to oil drilling as a sweeping budget bill headed toward a vote Thursday.

A plan to allow states to lift a moratorium on oil drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts was also axed.

While the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling plan could still be restored in conference, this is at least a temporary win for environmentalists, and we’ve had precious few of those lately.  Coming on the heels of Tuesday’s results here in the Golden State, I’m feeling more optimistic about my fellow citizens than I have in a while!  Who knew there were any GOP moderates left?  Calloo callay!

2.  Speaking of those who aren’t moderates, I spent some time yesterday afternoon listening to the Paul McGuire radio program.  McGuire is a very conservative, evangelical AM radio talk show host. He and his listeners were frustrated and upset over the special election results Tuesday, particularly the defeat of the parental notification initiative.  Many of his callers bemoaned the "ultra-liberal" electorate, comparing us to the ancient residents of Sodom and Gomorrah (a tired but still-effective rhetorical twist.)  Others were angry that more Christian conservatives hadn’t gone to the polls.  This raises an interesting question — one would think that Prop 73, the abortion initiative, would galvanize religious conservatives and send them to the polls in droves!  So what happened?  Did they not show up, despite the presence of 73 on the ballot?  Or did they show up, but still get walloped by a slightly larger progressive majority?  I am not sure I know the answer yet.

Yes, let’s be honest: sometimes, human nature being what it is, there is pleasure in "gloating"; it’s a rare person decent enough not to take some joy in listening to the discomfiture of one’s political opponents!  But as I listened, I did my best to do so prayerfully, as a fellow Christian — albeit one of a different theology — and to be sympathetic towards those who did not rejoice as I did in Tuesday’s results.  I listen a lot to shows like Paul McGuire’s; I figure it helps me keep a sense of what my far-more-conservative brothers and sisters are thinking.  Besides, Paul regularly leads his listeners in prayer, and I like that — and always, even though I share little if any of his agenda — I join in those prayers.

3.  On a related front, we had youth group last night.  Of course, there was some discussion of Proposition 73.  Several of our teen girls had been sporting "No on 73" buttons or stickers in previous weeks; last night I heard many fervent expressions of thanksgiving and relief for the prop’s narrow defeat.   Most of these girls are the daughters of All Saints members, of course; most All Saints members are in alignment with the church’s publicly pro-choice stance.   But even as the daughters of generally progressive parents, it’s clear that many of them were terrified at the prospect of being compelled to notify mom or dad before receiving an abortion.  These are young women whose parents would, I’m fairly certain, prefer that their daughters choose abortion rather than another option.  Even so, these girls were adamant that they ought to enjoy, even as minors, a right to reproductive privacy.  One girl expressed frank amazement that the measure had lost, saying "I can’t believe that many people really think the way we do; I’m so excited."  I chuckled, and made the usual gentle noises about how much I hoped that most of "my girls" would never be put in the position where they would need to exercise this particular right.  And of course, I stressed once again that if they didn’t feel comfortable talking to their parents, they could reach out to me or another youth minister.  Frankly, talking with these girls last night reminded me of why I had been right to overcome my reservations and vote "no" on 73.

4.  We also talked, not surprisingly, about the whole All Saints/IRS story.  Our rector, Ed Bacon, and our former rector, George Regas, have been on national news programs many times this week; the story of the confrontation between our parish and the Revenue Service over perceived partisanship in a Regas sermon has spread far and wide.  Of course, though all of our kids had some idea of what was going on, not everyone understood the whole idea of non-profit exemptions.  One of our staff members gave a very nice overview of the law, and I’m happy to say I learned a few things I didn’t know.  (For example, I had not realized that tax-exempt churches could take positions on propositions, just not on candidates.)   Once the kids had a fairly solid idea of how the law worked, we moved into discussion.

Many kids were intensely proud of the high profile of All Saints.  I suppose it’s true that we all have a little bit of a martyr complex, especially when our "martyrdom" doesn’t really hurt!  Some kids mentioned that their teachers or classmates had given them grief about belonging to such a liberal church; they told these stories with understandable pride.  But we wanted to do more than just give the kids a chance to say how proud they were of All Saints and how foolish they thought the IRS was.  We wanted them to reflect on many things, ranging from the sometimes high cost of discipleship (we emphasized the risks to All Saints are very real, especially since we have now refused the IRS settlement offer) to the new opportunities this presents.

We talked, of all things, about Ted Haggard and the National Association of Evangelicals.  Both publicly and privately, the conservative NAE has been very supportive of liberal All Saints.  Ted Haggard, president of the nation’s largest conservative Christian organization, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as expressing support for us:

When Ted Haggard, head of the 30-million-member National Assn. of Evangelicals, heard about the All Saints case Monday, he told his staff to contact the National Council of Churches, a more liberal group.

Haggard said he personally supports the war in Iraq and probably would not agree with much in the Rev. George Regas’ 2004 sermon at All Saints, which was cited by the IRS as the basis for its investigation. But Haggard said he wants to work with the council of churches "in doing whatever it takes to get the IRS to stop" such actions.

"It is a violation of the Constitution for the IRS to threaten that church. It may not be a violation of IRS regulations, but IRS regulations have been wrong," said Haggard, who is pastor of the 12,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs.

The point we wanted to make to the kids was that they had something in common with their fellow Christians in other churches.  Too often, our All Saints kids grow up believing that more conservative churches are filled with intolerant bigots with whom we share little or nothing.  But we emphasized last night that these folks were reaching out to us, standing with us in our time of need, forming a united front of faith against government intrusion.  Our lead senior high minister asked, "If these churches have reached out to us, how can we reach out to them?" 

One of my long-term goals has been more interaction between "liberal" All Saints kids and the teens at youth groups in much more evangelical churches.  A joint service project followed by a time for friendly dialogue seems like the most promising avenue.  We’ve bandied about the idea of doing this for a long while, but perhaps this new kerfuffle with the IRS (and the national attention it has brought to us) will be the catalyst to get up off our duffs and do something.  I have some contacts in youth ministry at some fairly conservative places ’round town; you know who you are (some of you read my blog.)  Expect a phone call.

Guess who’s up late…

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 08, 2005
in Abortion, GLBTQ and Politics
. 7 Comments

… and hitting F5 (the "refresh") key on his keyboard every few minutes to check election results?  I’m sipping tea, listening to Cake, Dar Williams, Dolly Parton and Jars of Clay on Itunes…  And though things look fairly good so far for us in the Golden State, I’m still fairly anxious — but heartened by results from the East Coast tonight, especially the gay rights victory in Maine.

So much for going to bed early to get up for an early morning run…

UPDATE:  Still up at 12:15, and the results keep looking better and better.  All of the governor’s initiatives are failing, as is the abortion notification initiative.  Turnout seemed better than anticipated.  Most of the outstanding ballots left to be counted are in liberal counties (Alameda, Los Angeles), and soon I will head to bed — cautiously optimistic.  I’ve been on the losing end of so many elections, it seems too good to be true that the left might have swept here in California tonight.