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Mum’s Not The Word

ABORTION, HEALTH
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

What if we lived in a world where the word — abortion — didn’t come with heaps of controversy, guilt and judgment? If such a world existed, we’d be more apt to see both sides of the coin, and with an unbiased clarity of sight, we might better understand that many women who choose to have abortions are actually unaffected by the controversial moral issues that politics and religion make us ever aware of. These women are without guilt because they don’t see abortion as something to be guilty over, nor do they see their own actions as criminal — or up for anyone’s judgment. For this type of woman, her decisions are hers to make, and hers alone. To the world she says, “It’s my body, and that makes it none of your business.”

And I’m going to be brutally honest — the concept that abortion is always a hard decision to make is untrue. There are women who don’t think twice; it’s what they have to do. They don’t get caught up in what ‘you’ think. And if terminating a pregnancy — for whatever reason — is something that they’ve determined as an absolute necessity, then… abortion it is. No looking back. Read more

Menstruating on the Front Line

MEDIA, POLITICS
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large
photo: http://www.rawstory.com/

Women in combat. Do you think having one’s period might affect a woman’s judgement during battle? Should PMS be considered a deterrent in proper decision making when it comes to the idea of women on the front line? What do you think? State Rep. Terri Proud was fired for stating her opinion.

The director of Arizona’s Department of Veterans’ Services resigned on Wednesday after the woman he hired to coordinate a female veterans’ conference, former State Rep. Terri Proud (R), said that women may be less suited to serve in combat because of their menstrual cycles.

“Women have certain things during the month I’m not sure they should be out there dealing with,” Proud told the Arizona Senora News Service on Tuesday. “I don’t know how to address that topic in a very diplomatic manner.”

Source: Terri Proud, Arizona Official, Fired Over Comment About Menstrual Cycles In Combat

Proud was fired for the comment that led to director Joey Strickland’s resignation. A spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer (R) told the News Service that the governor’s office had specifically told Strickland not to hire Proud in the first place.

Read more

Making Late Term Abortion Safe

ABORTION, MEDIA, POLITICS
Adrian Lamb | VB Blogger

Found at The Stir by CafeMom:

Jennifer McKenna Morbelli was a 29-year-old, married, expecting mom. She and her husband were excited about their baby girl, who they were going to name Madison Leigh. They’d set up a gift registry. And then, Jennifer got some disappointing news: It appears Madison had some abnormalities. Jennifer and her husband, TJ, made the difficult decision to abort at 33 weeks.

What happened next has ignited the fury of anti-abortion activists: Jennifer died following her abortion. A young mother and her baby are gone. But only a heartless ideologue could get up the next day and protest an abortion clinic after her death. Jennifer’s decision to abort was an act of compassion. Even if you don’t understand it, you need to respect it. And her death doesn’t mean we should ban late-term abortions. It means we need to make them safer and more accessible.

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Cuomo Defends Abortion Proposal

ABORTION, MEDIA, POLITICS

Dr. Stephen Chasen / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS writes:

New York needs new abortion laws
The current statutes don’t do enough to protect women’s health late in pregnancies

Opponents have been caricaturing what Gov. Cuomo calls his Women’s Equality Agenda as a radical liberal expansion of abortion rights in a state that already has far more abortions than the national average.

As a doctor who specializes in maternal-fetal health, I need to explain why they’re wrong — and why we need to update New York abortion law to make it consistent with federal law and current medical standards.

Some women experience serious health complications during pregnancy and, when faced with such medical crises, are forced to make hard decisions that no New Yorker should be forced to confront. I frequently see patients with serious obstetric complications and medical illnesses, or women who are carrying fetuses with severe and/or lethal abnormalities. Their stories are heartbreaking.

Read this article at The Daily News

Abortion In Ireland: Denial and Death

ABORTION, MEDIA
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

Robert Mackay, of The New York Times writes in his article, Vigils in Ireland for Indian Woman Who Died After Being Denied Abortion:

More than a thousand protesters rallied outside the Irish Parliament in Dublin on Wednesday night, calling on legislators to review Ireland’s strict anti-abortion laws, Irish radio reports. The protesters expressed outrage over the death of Savita Halappanavar, 31, an Indian dentist who died of an infection last month after doctors in the west of Ireland refused to abort her fetus during a miscarriage that lasted three days.

According to an Irish Times report:

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, 34, an engineer at Boston Scientific in Galway, says she asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. He says that, having been told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, Ms Halappanavar asked for a medical termination. This was refused, he says, because the fetal heartbeat was still present and they were told, “This is a Catholic country.”

She spent a further 2½ days “in agony” until the fetal heartbeat stopped.

Death of a Pregnant Woman Prompts Soul-Searching
Death of a Pregnant Woman Prompts Soul-Searching

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Resume the Position

ABORTION, MEDIA, POLITICS
Dori Hartley | VenusBlogs Managing Editor

What a week. With the election behind us now, we have a chance to reflect upon everything that affected us so intensely throughout the campaign on the subject of women, rape, birth control and abortion.

If anything good came out of all that stress and worry, it was the awareness of the fact that there really are people out there who are ripe and ready to turn the clock backwards to the oppressive world of the 1950s powerless but oh-so-wifely female.

I always thought that even the idea of one grand movement to rip the rights of women away was not only arrogant, but laughable. I could never wrap my mind around the concept that women were even in a position that one could negate with ridiculous concepts such as “taking rights away”. I am who I am. I don’t give another human being the option of taking my rights away. When I think of the men who concern themselves with what I do with my body, my skin crawls.

Hey you! Yeah, you the religious and righteous fiends who believe only in “my way or the highway” — How perverted are you to be thinking about my vagina all day and all night?

And to bring law into it, as if YOU and your holier-than-thou archaic thinking bears any resemblance as to what’s right for me! Ah, the hubris of your ways. Do you prepare your speeches while admiring yourself in the mirror?

You dare come between me and my choice? You dare tell me what to do with my body, my health — my mind? Ha!

For many women, these are the thoughts that came up over the last few months. Between what’s-his-name-Akin, and some of the other rape specialists and their vaginal obsession… these are the thoughts that came to the foreground of everybody’s mind, thoughts that rapidly morphed into a warrior stance. Forced once again to defend ourselves, we all became ninjas — and we attacked back. And, as everyone knows, ninjas always win.

So now… abortion, as it stands, will remain accessible and safe. Birth control will not be classified as a specialty medication, and rape will remain known as the vile and putrid act that it’s always been — one that is always “legitimate” and may result in pregnancy.

And women… women will rule the earth.

On behalf of the Manhattan Centers, I wish you all a healthy and happy life.

A Celebration of Choice

ABORTION, HEALTH, PREGNANCY, SEX
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

An older friend of mine told me a story about what it was like to grow up female in the 1950s. I got the impression that during these days — if you were a young woman — you either dressed fashionably demure and acted accordingly, or you wore black leather and had sex with bikers. No middle ground; just virgin angel or devilish whore.

You had to keep yourself chaste for your future husband, because the goal of being a woman — back then — was to get married, have children and become June Cleaver. Boys became men and could do whatever they wanted, but you — the woman — had to maintain your image as the dainty virgin that would one day become the respectable matron. Read more

My Legitimate Rape

ABORTION, PREGNANCY
Sandra Harmon | VenusBlogs Contributor

It was 1959. Eisenhower was President, “Ben Hur” was the highest grossing picture, with “Sleeping Beauty” coming in second, and “Some Like It Hot” third. I was nearly twenty-one years old, reasonably pretty, sexy with the glow of youth and anticipation, and working as a clerk/typist for a low-end dress manufacturer in the Garment District.

I’d moved into a studio apartment on 57th and 8th Avenue in Manhattan one hot August day. Although it was an old building in a then run-down neighborhood, at $97.00 a month I could just afford the rent. I bought some secondhand furniture from the Salvation Army store, but ordered a new bed from Macy’s. Unfortunately, it was going to be delivered after I moved in, so until then, I’d no choice but to sleep on the floor.

The next morning, at a neighborhood coffee shop, I ran into Enrique. In his early thirties, he was tall and well built, had a square, handsome face and straight black hair. He worked with the Chilean Embassy. Sometimes I’d see Enrique and his two sons, on Sundays, carrying bats and balls on their way to Central Park. Sometimes I’d meet him on the street with his pretty Chilean wife.

Hearing that I’d moved into a new apartment without a bed, Enrique offered to loan me a beach lounge. He climbed up five flights of stairs with the heavy lounge chair on his back as it was too large for the building’s tiny elevator. At the apartment, tired and sweaty, he asked for the Scotch I’d brought with me.

While he drank, we chatted awkwardly and then suddenly, he lurched towards me. I tried to back away, but he grabbed me and pushed me down hard on the floor. He ripped my cotton shorts aside and pushed himself inside of me. I screamed, begged and pleaded with him to stop. He wouldn’t. He had me pinned down and I was frightened. After what seemed like forever, he finally pulled out and was instantly ashamed and sorry. “I don’t know what came over me,” he said. I started screaming at him, and he quickly ran out of the apartment. I showered, my tears mingling with the steamy water, trying to wash the dirty feelings away.

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My Own Abortion

ABORTION, HEALTH
Gabrielle Vaughn | VenusBlogs Editor at Large

When my mom took me to the gynecologist for the very first time, I remember very little about the examination itself. I do however recall the impression the doctor’s office made on me. I remember that the waiting room was dark, and we sat on old couches that were upholstered in chintz fabric. There were framed paintings of withered flowers hung crookedly on walls covered in peeling, striped wallpaper. I felt like I was sitting among women who were all very, very old and we were all waiting to be seen by a very, very old male gynecologist. Of course, old to me was 35, being that I was 14 at the time. The thing that struck me the most about the whole situation was that I definitely felt out of place.

I was sexually active at a fairly young age so gynecological visits were par for the course. I went in mostly for birth control pills, which were prescribed so carelessly and without heed as to whether or not this method was safe for me. Truth was, The Pill was absolutely unsafe for someone like me, but back in those days doctors really didn’t perform blood work-ups — they just wrote up scripts and sent you out to the front desk to collect them. Read more

Women v. Haters

ABORTION, MEDIA, POLITICS
Dori Hartley | VenusBlogs Managing Editor


We have this new conversation going on these days, and it’s been dubbed, “the abortion wars”. It plays on past issues and present concerns and basically all of it revolves around whether or not a woman should have the right to terminate her own pregnancy if she so chooses to — for whatever reasons she may have.

The socio-political conversation touches on the subjects of modern Christian ethics and puts forth the question: Should abortion once again be made illegal, and if so, should there be any exception to the rule, such as in the case of rape or incest? Read more