reproductive rights Archives

The History and Future of Abortion Laws in America

Published on September 3, 2013

2438 views

The article you are about to read is neither an look at the morality of abortion nor a defense for women’s rights. It is a look at the history, future and constitutionality of abortion laws. I am neither pro-choice nor pro-life. I’m not republican or democrat. I am not a feminist. I don’t believe we should categorize and label ourselves over generalities because each choice we make has the potential to redefine who we are and who we think we are. That being said, it was extremely difficult to drudge through websites to find facts on this subject. The argument for/against abortion has been so politicized that every site has a slant. I did my best to leave politics behind and just look at the facts on this subject.

In the Beginning

When America was founded, abortions were legal. There were those for it and against it then as there are now, but it did not affect the laws. There were homes for unwed mothers and campaigns to “adopt not abort,” but the state did not have any laws on the books until the mid-to-late 1800’s.

The American Medical Association

The American Medical Association (AMA) was the catalyst for the first abortion laws, but for reasons you wouldn’t likely expect. Through criminalizing abortion, the AMA could push midwives, apothecaries, and homeopaths out of business by eliminating their principle procedure – abortions. Think about this, the AMA was against abortion for reasons related to business, position and profit and used the morality argument as the wedge.The AMA set the stage for what we see now. It introduced the pro-life side so it could corner the market on the abortion business. The AMA argued that abortion was immoral and dangerous and by 1910, every state had laws forbidding it unless it was to save a woman’s life, in which case a physician would perform it. No more midwives, apothecaries or homeopaths.

Did these laws protect women? No, back-alley abortions increased and more women died from complications. These back-alley abortions weren’t necessarily only unwed or unfit mothers either, women who had medical complications with the pregnancy but couldn’t afford to go to a physician could no longer seek out a midwife or other practitioner to conduct the procedure.

Margaret Sanger

In the 1900’s Margaret Sanger started educational campaigns for contraceptives because she opposed abortion. (For more information about Margaret Sanger, her involvement in founding Planned Parenthood, and her involvement in the Eugenics Movement in America read The History of Birth Control and Eugenics). As a proponent of the eugenics movement she had an agenda to keep, “More children from the fit, less from the unfit,” (Birth Control Review, May 1919, p. 12), but she did not pursue this agenda via abortions. As a nurse she cared for many women who died from complications of botched abortions and was very opposed to the practice because of the danger it imposed on women. Interestingly enough, Margaret Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, what we now know as Planned Parenthood. Today, Planned Parenthood performs legal abortions with government funds. Although it is ironic, I suspect that Sanger would likely approve of the procedure today because it is now a much safer procedure for women than it was during her time.

Roe v. Wade

Jumping ahead a bit to 1973, we come to the landmark case of Roe v. Wade. Texas, along with most other states had strict abortion laws that only allowed it if the women’s health was in danger. In this case, a 21-year-old woman brought a class action suit opposing the constitutionality of the law against abortion. She won. The Supreme Court ruled that the laws restricting women from having an abortion violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Today, this case is still the basis for the approval or rejection, and appeal of state and federal laws.

Today

The controversy remains heated. In 2012, Arizona passed a law that made it illegal for women to have abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, but in May 2013, aU.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the measure violates controlling U.S. Supreme Court precedent under the court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. It was a unanimous ruling. However, prior to the Court of Appeals decision, federal judge James Teilborg ruled the law constitutional because it did not prohibit women from ending their pregnancy, just forced them to do it earlier in the pregnancy.

More recently, on July 18, 2013 Texas Govenor, Rick Perry signed a law making it illegal for a woman to have an abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Texas joins 12 other states with similar laws.

While I’m a firm believer of State rights under the Tenth Amendment (which is why each state has different abortion laws). Legislation should not be based on what is considered right or wrong according to a politician’s beliefs; laws should be based on what is safe for the citizens the law is supposed to protect. Is an abortion after 20 weeks unsafe? That is a discussion we have not had. It’s certainly not common; according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights organization, it is estimated that only that 1.5 percent of abortions takes place after 21 weeks of pregnancy.

The Slippery Slope

In recent years, several states have passed “wrongful birth” laws. These laws prohibit medical malpractice lawsuits against doctors who withhold information from a woman that could cause her to have an abortion. Who are these laws protecting? The patient? The politicians’ re-election campaigns? The doctors? Take a minute to set your personal beliefs aside and think about this – there are laws that allow doctors to withhold medical information that could jeopardize the life of both the mother and fetus. How is that safe? How is that even remotely constitutional? How is it more morally acceptable to potentially allow both mother and child die in order to prevent an abortion? Yet, we the people have accepted it.

The Future

While most arguments about abortion never make it past debating morality and women’s rights, these laws and debates should dive into much deeper issues – state rights, separation of church and state, and the role of the government in our everyday lives. I can’t say whether or not abortion will be legal or illegal in five years or fifty, but one thing I know for sure is the absurdity of the bills introduced, laws passed, and what politicians say will continue to get out of control. Unless, we as citizen’s speak up.

I’m sure we all remember Representative Todd Akin’s statement in August 2012 on the subject of his opposition to abortion even in the case of rape, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

More recently, in January 2013, a bill was introduced in New Mexico that would prevent abortion in the case of rape or incest because it would be considered “tampering with evidence in cases of criminal sexual penetration or incest.” This bill would make an abortion in the case of rape and incest a third degree felony potentially punishable by up to three years in prison!

I wish I was making this up, but as the saying goes, the truth is stranger than fiction. In my opinion, it’s all razzle dazzle to distract the public from the fact that we don’t need, nor should we have laws for or against abortion, but instead have regulations that monitor the safety of the procedure as it changes with technology. Maybe in the future voters will see the deeper issues in this debate and undo what the AMA set in motion in the pursuit of profit, power and prestige.

Nevada Receives F in Women’s Health and Reproductive Rights

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on December 4, 2012

1575 views

According to the Population Institute’s 2012 Report Card on Reproductive Health and Rights, Nevada, my current home state, received a failing grade. That’s right, the state that depends upon women for its thriving tourist industry does nothing to care for those women while they are here.

Nevada was only one of nine states receiving the F in women’s health.

The most striking statistic:Nevada spent only $44,000 on family planning clinics for low income women in 2010. That equals about $0.08 per woman. Way to go Nevada!

To learn how your state ranks: The Population Institute 2012 Report Card on Reproductive Health and Rights.

Can we Manufacture Consent with Social Media?

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on November 12, 2012

2595 views

Anyone who has read my commentary knows that I am prone to philosophical flights of fancy; quite a contradistinction to my day job promoting women’s health and researching hormone systems. This election, however, has me thinking of Noam Chomsky and how he might view the battle between the political propaganda of traditional money and media versus the power of social media.

A recent study by Pew suggested that nearly 40% of all mainstream news coverage focused on politics, apparently down from 53% in 2008. Depending upon the network’s political preference, one was more or less likely to hear positive reports of the chosen candidate or party and negative commentary about the challenger, with sparsely anything in between. The completely insular nature of our major news networks, were by any criteria, manufacturing consent for their viewers. In this post Citizen’s United election, mainstream media and money were so closely merged that nary a fact to the contrary of the stated opinion could break through.

Then there was social media, the vast diaspora of public opinion, where until recently (new Facebook algorithms) news, real and fake, spread like wildfire; where rather than big money selecting who you follow and by association the filters through which your news is served, we, the public can self-filter. We select who serves us our news by the very act of choosing who to follow or who to read. And we in turn can guide the direction of the conversation by choosing to re-tweet or share what we find. This is a remarkably powerful shift in information management, one that big money, no matter how it has tried, cannot yet contain or control.

Your Uterus, Your Ovaries and Social Media

Nowhere was the power of social media more obvious than in the women’s health debates. Beginning in earnest with the Sandra Fluke hearing and continuing through every asinine comment made by a male politico, social media brought voice and power to women in a way never before possible. Here are just a few of the women’s political sites that sprung up this election season.

Without the almost continuous accessibility of news and information and the unlimited degree to which information could be shared on social media, does anyone really think that women’s reproductive rights would have been covered at all by mainstream media? Even post-election, the power of women and social media is barely mentioned by mainstream media, despite the fact that women effectively won the election for the democrats – by 18 points in the presidential race and by equally high margins across federal and state elections.

Social Media and Women’s Reproductive Rights

The silent majority is silent no longer. The question is – for how long? What corporate filters will silence the female masses and re-direct the conversation? Will the pendulum swing again and allow corporate and political money to determine what news we are served even in the social media sphere?

Unfortunately, yes. And it is already happening. The new Facebook algorithms released just last month, decide what news is important to the user (to some extent, it has done this all along, but never so egregiously). It doesn’t matter that users spend years developing a network of friends and followers or that they may really want to see little Susie’s first-day-of school-pictures. Nope, none of that matters. Facebook’s algorithm decides what will interest each user and only shows those feeds. As a result, users are only served about 16% of the content posted by their friends.

Since this latest change, traffic on most Facebook pages, where most political news is conveyed, is down by as much as 60-70%. Imagine if this had happened well before the election (algorithm rolled out at the end of September). Would women, who are the dominant users of Facebook been able to mobilize? Would grassroots organizations have been able to disseminate information effectively? Maybe not.

Though I am certain Facebook’s motivation for these changes is monetary, the ultimate result will be political. And in that regard, Facebook has now become, by their very business model, arbiters of political speech, likely to the detriment of women’s health and all other ‘fringe’ movements that lack the money to market their message. Facebook is manufacturing consent, with all the same news filters Chomsky wrote about 30 years ago, plus the new algorithm filter. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the brainchildren of Facebook controlling my access to news. Twitter anyone?

@ChanatLucine @LucineWoman

The irony – Facebook is the public square. So, even though only 16% of our followers will see this post on our page (Lucine Women Community), we must post it there anyway. It’s time for a new public square.

Subtle but fundamental changes in discourse: is anyone listening?

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on March 14, 2012

2344 views

Discourse Matters

What happens when we change the definition of a person to include everything from a corporation to a barely fertilized female egg? What happens when the corporate person and a collection of cells have more tacit and actual rights afforded than actual sentient beings? Though the loud and often offensive debates over a woman’s manifest right to make decisions about her health have led many to declare a ‘war on women,’ these same trends will serve to erode human rights in general- even for male humans.

Perhaps more of a philosophical question at this point, but when the definitions of words within a language dissociate so radically- person no longer means a human- it is difficult not to wonder what ramifications are before us; the law of unintended consequences will most certainly be at play here.

The Subject in Discourse

Language, and by association conversation or discourse, follow some very specific rules. At the most basic level, a sentence contains a subject, verb and object and, for the most part, words describe something about reality. (We’ve long since dissembled language and reality with mega marketing, political expediency and spin- but that is another topic altogether).

Subjects are usually, he, she, it, they etc., a person or thing. Although the definition of person has evolved over the course of history, it is generally allied with some underlying concept of sentience or thinking. Even though animals can think, we have never defined animals as persons (try as many dog lovers might) and there has always been a clear demarcation between human and everything else. Over the course of two years, however, cultural forces have rendered that definition virtually obsolete. And we have yet to settle on a new definition.

Corporate Privileges in Discourse

By law, corporations are now afforded some of the same (often more) rights than human persons. A corporation is comprised of human persons, but is essentially a contrived legal entity that allows business to transact. What does it mean when a legal contrivance becomes a person? Because corporate persons often have more power and money, there is the very real risk that their market goals will supersede basic human rights. (As a countervailing force, however, the millions of people within corporations connected socially online may overturn this overstep- see my last post).

The Risks of Anti-Abortion Discourse

Similarly, local anti-abortion supporters aligned with local government entities have pushed legislation across multiple regions of the US that grant a fertilized egg, person status; often affording the cell person more rights than the human person. Along with these trends, legislation that either forces women to undergo unneeded medical procedures and/or prevent physicians from providing medical information to women supersede the rights of the human-sentient person in favor of cells. No matter what you believe about abortion, this is a fundamental shift in discourse with significant policy ramifications.

Aside from the potentially life-threatening position a woman can now be placed in legally, aside from ethical quandaries these laws place a physician in and the very real medical malpractice suits that these laws open the physician up to, this shift in language, motivated by narrow political goals, removes the notion of human rights, human persons, from policy discussions. And although, these policies currently target women specifically, they will ultimately erode rights for all humans. Who is to say other cells or other legal or object entities don’t indeed deserve to be protected over the rights of humans.

Sperm cells for example, are core constituents of human life and until we master asexual reproduction, why shouldn’t all sperm cells be considered sacred and merit the same protective caveats as the female egg? Or to its absurdity, the male penis, testicles and the like, containers of this life-giving force, why shouldn’t they be enshrined and protected until the moment of copulation- a chastity belt perhaps?

Laugh as we might, redefining personhood to include everything from non-human, legal entities to a collection of cells that may or may not evolve into a human being, dismisses the role and rights of actual humans. This change in discourse is a dangerous slope.

Why Citizens United, Feckless Politicians and Misogynist Radio Hosts are good for Women’s Rights

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on March 6, 2012

2757 views

Yes, you read that correctly. The current diatribes and debates about women’s health and our rights to health care are a good thing. We are seeing, perhaps for the first time in a very long while, what many individuals and organizations really think about women’s rights. For this we have the Supreme Court and Citizens United to thank.

Citizens United, the infamous Supreme Court decision that decreed corporate personhood, cemented a long brewing trend in American political conscience favoring the rights and goals of corporations and institutions over those of individuals. More than simply allowing organizations or the super-rich to buy politicians of their choosing and do so entirely unencumbered by messy citizen-based fundraising or even approval, Citizen’s United capped, like an exclamation point, the corporate and institutional priorities of the last half of the 20th century.

Unhindered by legality, or even the good sense to mask a blatant trampling of the rights of human citizens, organizational power, under the corporate personhood decision, can now progress to its logical absurdity, which it is doing with astonishing alacrity. And women’s rights are in the cross-hairs.

Nothing but the pure hubris that comes with the unbridled power of corporate sponsored politicians can explain the all-male congressional hearings on women’s health, the Blunt Amendment or the continued political capitulation to the vile diatribes of a male radio host who debases women with every breath. Did they really think these events would go unnoticed by the female population? Obviously, they did. How else does one explain such a huge strategic error in political engineering? Even a neophyte political operative, if asked, would have suggested at least giving the appearance of inclusion of women or paying lip-service to those with differing opinions, if only to manage the optics.

With corporate personhood and corporate sponsored politicians, many politicians, it appears, believe that managing the optics is no longer necessary. Forget about working for the citizenry that the politician was elected to represent (that was lost long ago) it is much more expedient to manage the ‘corporate persons’ that sponsor one’s political longevity. In many ways, politicians in this post-Citizen’s United world are freer to behave in accordance with their actual beliefs. This includes favoring the prerogatives of the corporation or large organization over those of individuals; and as we’ve seen in recent weeks, throwing women’s health under the bus.

I would argue, however, that this is dire mistake, because despite the apparent victory that Citizen’s United granted corporations and other large organizations, it was rooted in 20^th century trends (and even earlier ideological foundations). Romney’s ill-fated “corporations are people” bespoke a critical truth, too quickly ignored. A corporation is not a unified entity, with a monolithic point-of-view, no matter how much money those at the top decide to throw at their chosen politician or desired political goals.

Corporations are comprised of millions of actual citizens (>50% are women) who are technologically connected and capable of launching powerful movements for or against their corporate or political leaders. Indeed, corporations and politicians are far more dependent upon the goodwill the citizenry than most realize. Consider the social media onslaught that befell proponents of the heavy-handed, industry-sponsored legislation to curtail online piracy (SOPA/PIPA) or the more recent attempt to block public access to tax-payer funded scientific research (HR3699/RWA). Both bills were blocked by internet activism. And these were relatively arcane bills. Imagine the power of millions of angry, connected women? Talk about a countervailing force to Citizen’s United, corporate shenanigans and feckless politicians; yes, this war on women is a good thing. It is awakening a sleeping giant. What this giant will do is anyone’s guess, but I’d hate to be the wrong side.

Are Women Equal Ender the Law?

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on February 20, 2012

2696 views

The Raucous Birth Control Debate

When I was in my 20s, I was adamantly non-feminist. I considered myself equal to any man. I had control of my reproductive health. I could vote, hold office, play sports and saw no point in fighting those old battles. Boy was that naïve. I still consider myself equal to any man. I realize now, however, that much of the world does not agree. And rather than progressing towards more equality, as a country we seem to be moving towards less.

Here we are over a decade into the 21^st century and we are once again arguing about a woman’s right to manage her own health. We’re arguing about birth control. Partly because of the political and economic dynamics of our time, the issue is more heated than ever. Wedge issues like this re-surface with every election cycle. From a dollars and cents perspective, who wants to pay for medications that 98% of the female population utilizes for years at a time? Birth control is an expensive proposition for any institution.

Economics aside, I would contend that the birth control debate is not about birth control, or even one’s religious beliefs. No, this debate is about whether women are full citizens with all of the rights and privileges as men – including the right to make their own health care choices.

Are women equal to men under the law? Do we have the right to pursue health, happiness and liberty as we see fit? Do we have the right to religious freedom? Or per the current brouhaha, are we a special class of citizen with only some of the rights conferred to the male citizenry?

If the current discussions are any indication, there are many among us that believe that women’s rights are alienable and superseded by the rights of religious institutions or political expediency. How else does one explain the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearings on women’s health that included no women, but highlighted the male hierarchy of congressional and religious power? How else does one explain the conservative punditry’s fealty to the male view of women’s health (adroitly portrayed by John Stewart’s Vagina Ideologues ). How else does one explain the utter lack of women, even conservative women, present in these discussions about women’s health?

Maybe these events can be chalked up to the election year machinations of feckless politicians; maybe it is just a power play, positioning one party over the other; we can hope…

I worry, however, that as these conversations continue and the voices of women are denied, the prevailing discourse that women’s health and self-determination are matters of religious conscience and governmental intrusion, will become more and more entrenched. The line between election year politicking and reality is blurring quickly. These debates are defining not only who can speak about women’s health, but which topics are acceptable; only men and only reproduction.

As a woman and a fierce advocate for women’s health research, I find the current trends dangerously recursive. No, these discussions are not about birth control or even religious freedoms. These issues aren’t even about liberal versus conservative or left versus right, though often framed as such. These discussions are about whether women are equal citizens with all the rights and privileges accorded. Do we have the right to make and manage our own health care decisions? If the current discourse continues, the answer is trending towards no, women are not equal.

We Need Your Help

More people than ever are reading Hormones Matter, a testament to the need for independent voices in health and medicine. We are not funded and accept limited advertising. Unlike many health sites, we don’t force you to purchase a subscription. We believe health information should be open to all. If you read Hormones Matter, like it, please help support it. Contribute now.

Yes, I would like to support Hormones Matter.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.

Unite Walking Uteri: Repair the Economic Moral Fabric, One Woman at a Time

by Chandler Marrs, PhD

Published on October 20, 2011

1408 views

For a website devoted to women’s hormone health research, I seem to write a lot about the current economic and political situation. That may seem odd on the surface, but a deeper dive reveals an inextricable connection. The recession has forced American values into re-alignment and like or not, health is at the center. And women’s health, because we bear children, is at the nexus.

As a woman, who has born children, I take offense to the fact that in political, economic and healthcare debates, women have become no more than walking uteri. From both the political Left and Right, our choices to bear or not bear children seem to represent the sum total of the interest in our health. Sometimes our breast health is considered and on a rare occasion other aspects of our physiology enter into public discourse and even research, but mostly it is our childbearing that garners the attention.

Even so, the pretense that the debates currently dominating the public arena involve anything closely related to women or health is false. These are debates about money and power—getting it and keeping it– and we are simply the tokens of that economy. But we don’t have to be, because as walking uteri, they have failed to recognize one important point- we can walk the other direction.

Although we are only 50% of the population, we consume 80% of the medical care and we control the medical decision-making in most families – that is our power. The makers of HRT know this all too well. They saw their profits drop by as much 70% when the unfounded marketing claims that HRT cured everything came to light. Millions of women transferred their consumer purchasing power to the bio-identical hormone, nutraceutical and other health-related industries. As hospitals began dictating C-sections, a whole movement of home-birth evolved; home-birth in the 21^st century- who could have predicted that? As more and more toxins are found in our foods and especially baby products, companies marketing healthy, organic products are born. Our uteri are walking right out the door and creating entire industries that place health and well-being center stage.

So, while politicians covet big money from the corporations that obliterated the economy and decimated women’s health; while protestors protest the profligate practices of Wall Street (finally) and pundits decide which side of the ratings fence they are on, women are quietly re-building the economy. Inc.com indicates that women lead 40% of all business in the US (2010), but received less than 8% of investment capital. Perhaps as a result of the lower capital, we are better at bootstrapping, have higher growth, better returns and our businesses succeed more frequently than companies led by men. Our companies are less risky; none of the high-flying financial shenanigans that got us into this mess in the first place. Perhaps because of the inequities in healthcare and research perpetrated on women by men interested only in the functionality of our collective uteri, we’re building companies that address women’s health-beyond the uterus. Companies like Lucine, and many, many others.

Are the attempts to de-fund women’s health important, even though they pertain to the most narrow definition of health? Yes. They serve as a reminder that we have more power than we think. We are the consumer market that matters. We can take our consumer buying power and our voting power elsewhere. We can create the industries that matter to us. In doing so, we repair what David Brooks called the ‘moral fabric of our economy.’

Hormone health research and diagnostics matter to me and my colleagues at Lucine. What matters to you?

reproductive rights

In the Beginning

The American Medical Association

Margaret Sanger

Roe v. Wade

Today

The Slippery Slope

The Future

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Your Uterus, Your Ovaries and Social Media

Social Media and Women’s Reproductive Rights

@ChanatLucine @LucineWoman

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Discourse Matters

The Subject in Discourse

Corporate Privileges in Discourse

The Risks of Anti-Abortion Discourse

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Related posts:

You might be interested in

The Raucous Birth Control Debate

We Need Your Help

Related posts:

You might be interested in

Related posts:

You might be interested in