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Gag
Ed Separation of Church and State. Our founding fathers knew this was a critical element in any democracy, in order to prohibit any one religious dogma from dominating people's individual rights. Yet, the Bush administration, having caved in to the conservative evangelical Christian right, knows no such separation. As a result, federal decisions regarding family planning are affecting women worldwide, from Ethiopa and Somalia to Eugene and Springfield. For years, anti-abortion activists have been lobbying Congress, pushing hard for legislation that would undermine a woman's right to reproductive freedom. The U.S. House of Representatives' passage last week of the partial-birth abortion ban isn't new. Congress passed it twice before, but Clinton vetoed it both times. Also, the Supreme Court ruled three years ago that such a ban was unconstitutional, lifting the bans already imposed by several states. Now, the high court may be the only thing that stands in the way of the bill affecting the lives of millions of women, for if this bill becomes law, many fear it is only the first step in the road toward outlawing abortion for good. But can the U.S. populace, who overwhelmingly favor safe, legal abortion access, count on the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the law? From the national level to the international level, the war rages. On his very first day in office, George W. expanded the global gag rule. Previously, the rule only banned the mention of abortion to anyone in any country who receives U.S. funding for birth control. Now, the gag applies to those receiving HIV/AIDS funding, and there is talk in the administration of limiting condom shipments to countries with HIV/AIDS epidemics.
American Women Under Attack The climate of suppression is becoming more suffocating nationally, as well. The current administration is applying pressure to formerly apolitical institutions, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Center for Disease Control (CDC). NIH proved there is no link between abortion and breast cancer and had those findings published, yet the Bush administration forced NIH to amend the findings to say they were "inconclusive." Meanwhile, CDC had a fantastically comprehensive website with information on condom use and sexually transmitted infections (STI's). But that lifesaving information was dismantled, amended and replaced with watered down rhetoric. Now, the federal government is planning on funneling up to $133 million into abstinence-only education funding. That money will be diverted from other health and human service needs, but that's OK with Bush-appointed Health and Human Services Chair Tommy Thompson, who put abstinence-only and anti-family planning ideologues in charge of major reproductive health programs. In addition to his abstinence-only approach to sex ed, insiders report one-third of the new and much touted HIV/AIDS prevention funds will be spent on preaching abstinence rather than prevention. As to organizations that not only benefit from federally funded programs that help prevent teen pregnancy and STI's, but also help local school districts in carrying out their sexuality education curricula, the ante's up if they dare to speak out against the new Gag Ed. The feds have already threatened to audit Planned Parenthood and others who have been trying to inform the public of the gutting of our children's health education.
FROM THE BOTTOM UP In her recent book, Behind Every Choice is a Story, published in time to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in January, Planned Parenthood National President Gloria Feldt outlines the battlefield of what she calls "the family planning wars." Using anecdotes from women across the U.S., she recounts the stories of women who have and have not had access to legal, safe abortion and other family planning options and how that's affected their lives. Nationally, Planned Parenthood is working on new legislation, the Freedom of Choice Act, which would establish federal and state civil rights protections to guarantee reproductive freedom for all women in the U.S. The Supreme Court is hanging in the balance (it currently swings pro-choice 5-4), and Feldt, speaking on a recent book tour to Portland, said women can no longer count on the law being imposed from the top down, but must get active to protect their civil rights "from the bottom up, mobilizing the grassroots to codify reproductive rights" in every state and at the federal level. "It may take another generation and will be the hardest thing we've ever done," she says. "But we will build a new and stronger tent of freedom and justice." What Feldt calls a "bold agenda" that shoots for a target date of 2025 includes:
The Local Picture Bringing it home, Oregon alone faces 14 bills limiting women's reproductive rights, introduced by a bevy of anti-choice legislators. Among those bills is a state version of the federal so-called "Unborn Victims of Violence Act." By charging an offender who harms a pregnant woman with a separate offense for harm to the fetus, these bills create separate personhood status for the fetus.
For example, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush recently appointed a guardian for the fetus of a profoundly developmentally disabled rape victim. "He expressed no concern for this helpless woman but took the opportunity to value her fetus above her rights, her health, her life," says Feldt. How can the federal government get away with its agenda to undermine Roe v. Wade, a law that upholds the self-determination of the majority of the population? Easy. The Bush administration is packing the courts to overturn Roe. George W. Bush has re-nominated both Priscilla Owen and Charles Pickering. Feldt's been following them. "Owen applied parental consent laws more aggressively than the law or court precedence required, and Pickering argued to abolish both Roe and the ERA. Nominees Carolyn Kuhl and Lavenski Smith also urge an outright reversal of Roe, while nominee James Leon Holmes served as the president of Arkansas Right to Life and declared that women should submit to their husbands." Away from the hubbub of her whirlwind book tour, Feldt speaks even more candidly to EW. "I've come to believe that reproductive rights are the most basic rights women have. Without that right we can't do anything else. We can't determine the rest of our lives," she says. Feldt believes that it's "imminently possible" that Roe could get overturned. Even now, she says, it's a mere "shell" of what it used to be. And, with 86 percent of women in the U.S. without local access to abortion, much work needs to be done. "Rights are good but rights without access don't mean much," she says.
Fighting Back So far this session, the Oregon House of Representatives has held hearings on five anti-choice bills ranging from creating new informed consent procedures for abortion to outrightly banning certain abortion procedures and creating new regulations for clinics and abortion providers. In April, the House of Representatives passed HB 2547, a 24-hour delay and biased counseling bill. The bill is currently sitting in the Senate, waiting to be heard. According to Eugene Planned Parenthood's Kitty Piercy, "It's not over 'til it's over." Ballot measures are another threat to reproductive rights. Last year, the Constitution Party of Oregon filed parental consent ballot measures in seven Oregon counties (Columbia, Yamhill, Marion, Clackamas, Washington, Jackson and Polk.) So far, Columbia County, which defeated the measure, is the only county to vote on the initiative. Oregon Right to Life has filed a 24-hour delay measure and is threatening to put it on the ballot in 2004. This measure is nearly identical to HB 2547, which Gov. Kulongoski has said he will veto if it passes the Senate. The outcome may be different if left to the voters. Meanwhile, like women across the country, Oregonians have an access problem. Currently, 78 percent of Oregon counties do not have an abortion provider. "This creates huge barriers for low-income women, women with children, and working women, who must travel great distances to a service provider," says Portland Planned Parenthood's Nancy Bennett. While the Portland (known as the Columbia/Willamette) Planned Parenthood office provides abortion services in all of its seven clinics, including Salem and Bend, Eugene's Planned Parenthood does not. All Women's Health Center provided Eugeneans with abortion access, but that clinic closed down last July. Currently, Eugene has four abortion providers in addition to the gynecologists who will terminate pregnancies for their clients. (Eugene's abortion providers do not wish to have their names published due to possible repercussions.) The closing of All Women's Health Center prompted the local Planned Parenthood chapter (PPHSSO) to study the issue of abortion access for all women in Oregon. First, "the board decided to support the provision of abortion services in dispersed settings throughout the communities we serve instead of concentrating the services in one clinic," says Piercy. Next, a task force was created to 1) decrease the demand for abortion services by working to expand clinic programs, education programs and promote the availability of Emergency Contraception and 2) to increase access to abortion services by identifying and eliminating barriers to abortion. The latter is being done by supporting existing local abortion providers, increasing the number of providers in the Eugene community, and creating a positive political climate for abortion services. The local Planned Parenthood chapter is working on developing an abortion resources manual, promoting the use of medical abortion, training clergy members to provide free counseling on abortion and other reproductive issues, and establishing an abortion access fund to assist low-income women. "Planned Parenthood believes that in the long run, a broad approach to decreasing demand while expanding access holds the greatest promise of achieving a vision of a time when abortion is legal, safe and rare," says Piercy. "With all of the bills pending that could limit women's rights, Portland's Bennett feels pressure. "What all of this means for pro-choice supporters and activists is that we will continue to waste our time, money and other resources fighting legislation and ballot measures that do nothing to improve women's health and women's lives, but instead undermine their fundamental right to reproductive choice."
ABSTINENCE-ONLY EDUCATION So far, 38 states have accepted Gag Ed dollars. But in tough economic times, the offer may look more attractive to the others, causing some to re-think their health curriculum and add it to their bottom line. Recent studies show that abstinence-only education may result in students age 15 and younger delaying sex. After that age, there is no statistical difference based on curriculum. But what is disturbing is the statistic that shows, among those who are taught abstinence only and receive no information on birth control, those students do not use birth control when they do become sexually active, around age 16 or 17. Ultimately, statistics show that having access to information, as well as birth control, lowers unintended pregnancies and STI's. Planned Parenthood has had amazingly positive results with the Family Planning Expansion Project (FPEP), a federally funded program that offers free birth control to anyone low income, including students. That money, coupled with local and state dollars, has resulted in up to 200 fewer teen pregnancies per year in Lane County. It offers easy access to condoms, leading to prevention of both pregnancy and disease. But chances are the federal money will be taken away and funneled into abstinence-only education.
The Eugene 4J school district uses the abstinence-based model, with age-appropriate information given to children as part of the health curriculum beginning in kindergarten. "We start with talking about handwashing and not picking anything dirty up on the playground," says Nancy Johnson, who oversees 4J's health curriculum. From there, the curriculum develops as the children do. In fifth grade, the children are taught about HIV/AIDS along with drug intervention, and sexuality education begins with a lesson in human anatomy. As students move up, components such as dating issues, responsibility and respect, and finally, information on birth control and STI's are added to the curriculum. Just as the state adopts guidelines but leaves it up to individual school districts to adopt their own curricula, so too, does 4J allow individual schools to determine their health programs. Within each school, teachers may vary their approach, says Johnson, but "the information will be the same." For example, one teacher may feel more comfortable discussing date rape, while another may invite someone from Sexual Assault Support Services (SASS) to speak to the class. Representatives from Planned Parenthood also visit schools to teach the kids about birth control. As all classes are co-ed, the information reaches both responsible parties. The school shares all materials and curriculum information openly with parents. Some schools offer preview nights, where parents are invited in to view books and worksheets and speak with teachers. Others send information home with the students. Johnson suggests parents with questions about the curriculum call the school and speak with their child's teacher directly. Statistics show that 85 percent of parents want sex education in their children's schools. But can schools really provide all the information kids need to make responsible decisions? In her book, Feldt reports anecdote after anecdote of women and men saying, "If only my parents had talked to me about sex." That's the ideal, says Johnson, "but many parents are uncomfortable talking with their kids about sex." Although 4J has had classes in the past to help parents with the subject, few showed up. "We've also had drug intervention classes," says Johnson. "But many parents stayed away because they thought showing up would intimate their child was doing drugs. It's the same thing with sexuality information classes." Currently, the local chapter of Planned Parenthood is developing the "Rights and Responsibility" program. It is based on European models and the idea is to get the community involved in raising young people in a healthy, respectful environment where an openness to sexuality, HIV/AIDS, respect, diseases, and pregnancy takes the burden off just the parents and schools and places it in the hands of everyone. As for abstinence-only education, Feldt says, "I call that an abstinence of common sense." And as for preaching abstinence instead of teaching prevention for HIV/AIDS, Feldt says, "I call that cruel and inhumane."
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With
this legal trend, Feldt fears women's status will become secondary.
"When the fetus is elevated to a status above that of the woman, Roe
is moot and women's bodies become mere vessels," she says.
In
Oregon, although former first lady Sharon Kitzhaber was a staunch supporter
of abstinence ed, being a founding member of the state's abstinence-only
STARS program, the state instead adopted an abstinence-based model.
That means abstinence is prioritized, but information on contraception,
STI's, decisonmaking skills and other information is added. Oregon allows
each school district, however, to adopt its own approach based on what
its population's needs are — and many have indeed adopted the
abstinence-only curriculum.