Abortion seems to be the only medical procedure that people want to deny you based on how you got in that situation.

Drove drunk, got in an accident and need an organ transplant? No problem.

Messing around with a gun, accidentally shoot yourself in the leg and need surgery? Of course.

Smoke tobacco for most of your life and need treatment for lung cancer? Yep.

Climb a tree, fall out and break your leg? We’ll fix that right up.

Have sex and get pregnant when you don’t want to be? YOU GOT YOURSELF INTO THIS SITUATION AND YOU DESERVE NO MEDICAL HELP OR COMPASSION! THIS IS YOUR FAULT AND YOU WILL DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES!

Worry About Your Own Uterus:   (via veruca-assault)

“Worry about your own uterus” wise  wise words.

(via triplash)

40 Days of Choice #prochoicefriend Campaign Launched Today!

edforchoice:

Each lent, many anti-choicers decide to camp outside abortion clinics and spread lies and misinformation about abortion. This year, a number of pro-choice groups are running a #prochoicefriend campaign to try and counter-act this shaming of those who choose abortion. 

Interested in helping out? Here’s what you can do to:

TWEET!

The account for this project is @40DaysofChoice and the hashtag we’re hoping to use is #prochoicefriend. Please tweet messages like:

“To all my friends - if you ever decide to have an abortion, I will support you in any & every way that I can! #prochoicefriend “

“If you ever decide to have an abortion, I’m your taxi! #prochoicefriend” 

“Need to talk about an unplanned pregnancy? I’m here and I’ll never judge! #prochoicefriend” 

and more creative ones that you can come up with! Also please tweet photos at us, with your own message on a sign or photoshopped in! We’re hoping to get a massive collage by the end that we can turn into a video.

 

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Share longer statuses on Facebook. This is one we came up with but it would be great if people can make up their own:

“Dear friends, family and anyone else who likes me – I just want to let you know that if you ever decide to have an abortion, I’ll support you! I’ll give you a lift to/from the clinic, I’ll make you tea, I’ll cook you dinner, I’ll talk to you if you’re not sure about it or just want to talk – whatever you want and/or need I’ll be happy to help :) there are too many people out there trying to make women feel ashamed for their choices, I just want you all to know that I would never judge any decision you make!”

 

UPLOAD A PHOTO

We’ve set up a Flickr account where we’re going to gather all the photos (http://www.flickr.com/photos/fortydaysofchoice/) so if you want to send one to the Facebook page, Twitter account, or email (fortydaysofchoice@yahoo.com) it, we’ll get them all up on the Flickr!

 

MAKE A VIDEO

Same goes, the more material we have the better, we’re hoping to get a great piece done by the end!

 

SPREAD THE WORD FAR AND WIDE PLEASE!

selinaakyle:

erossum:

sweetupndown9:

These Women Are About To Tell You Some Things That Are Absolutely None Of Your Business

Holy shit women on fire. This video gave me chills. If you do nothing at all today - watch this!

ask one more time why we need feminism

I’m in tears. This is amazing.

Such an incredibly powerful video [TW for mention of rape]

Education For Choice is dedicated to enabling young people to make informed choices about pregnancy and abortion. We call for young people to have the facts about abortion, whoever they are, whoever they ask, wherever they go. Please follow!

[Image shows a little blonde white boy in an orange life jacket, holding a oar on a jetty over some some water.
Text reads, “We should ban life jackets & other floatation devices.
They only encourage risky behaviour. The only 100% effective way to prevent drowning is total abstinence from going in the water.
And if you do, by chance, find yourself struggling with drowning, then no life-saving or otherwise procedure or act should be allowed to be administered. You got yourself into this mess, you have to live with the consequences.
You should see drowning as a gift.
Also, if you were forcibly pushed into the water, don’t worry, it it was a legitimate pushing, your body will find a way to shut out all the water and survive the drowning.]

[Image shows a little blonde white boy in an orange life jacket, holding a oar on a jetty over some some water.

Text reads, “We should ban life jackets & other floatation devices.

They only encourage risky behaviour. The only 100% effective way to prevent drowning is total abstinence from going in the water.

And if you do, by chance, find yourself struggling with drowning, then no life-saving or otherwise procedure or act should be allowed to be administered. You got yourself into this mess, you have to live with the consequences.

You should see drowning as a gift.

Also, if you were forcibly pushed into the water, don’t worry, it it was a legitimate pushing, your body will find a way to shut out all the water and survive the drowning.]

stfuconservatives:

think-progress:

This.

Can I spray-paint a hula hoop and come as a Nuvaring? I want a coalition of all forms of birth control following Romney around.

Photograph caption reads ‘Giant pack of birth control to follow Romney on campaign trail’. Photograph shows a group of people, both male and female, holding protest signs such as ‘I don’t want to be a father yet - Mitts of her birth control’. One person is dressed as a birth control pill packet.

stfuconservatives:

think-progress:

This.

Can I spray-paint a hula hoop and come as a Nuvaring? I want a coalition of all forms of birth control following Romney around.

Photograph caption reads ‘Giant pack of birth control to follow Romney on campaign trail’. Photograph shows a group of people, both male and female, holding protest signs such as ‘I don’t want to be a father yet - Mitts of her birth control’. One person is dressed as a birth control pill packet.

lavenderlabia:

desliz:

Let me tell you some things.

I used to investigate child abuse and neglect. I can tell you how to stop the vast majority of abortion in the world.

First, make knowledge and access to contraception widely available. Start teaching kids before they hit puberty. Teach them about domestic violence and coercion, and teach them not to coerce and rape. Create a strong, loving community where women and girls feel safe and supported in times of need. Because guess what? They aren’t. You know what happens to babies born under such circumstances? They get hurt, unnecessarily. They get sick, unnecessarily. They get removed from parents who love them but who are unprepared for the burden of a child. Resources? Honey, we try. There aren’t enough resources anywhere. There are waiting lists, and promises, and maybes. If the government itself can’t hook people up, what makes you think an impoverished single mom can handle it?

Abolish poverty. Do you have any idea how much childcare costs? Daycare can cost as much or more than monthly rent. They may be inadequately staffed. Getting a private nanny is a nice idea, but they don’t come cheap either. Relatives? Do they own a car? Does the bus run at the right times? Do they have jobs of their own they need to work just to keep the lights on? Are they going to stick around until you get off you convenience store shift at 4 AM? Do they have criminal histories that will make them unsuitable as caregivers when CPS pokes around? You gonna pay for that? Who’s going to pay for that?

End rape. I know your type errs on the side of blaming the woman, but I’ve seen little girls who’ve barely gotten their periods pregnant because somebody thought raping preteens was an awesome idea. You want to put a child through that? Or someone with a mental or physical inability for whom pregnancy would be frightening, painful or even life-threatening? I’ve seen nonverbal kids who had their feet sliced up by caregivers for no fucking reason at all, you think sexual abuse doesn’t happen either?

You say there’s lots of couples who want to adopt. Kiddo, what they want to adopt are healthy white babies, preferably untainted by the wombs and genetics of women with alcohol or drug dependencies. I’ve seen the kids they don’t want, who almost no one wants. You people focus only on the happy pink babies, the gigglers, the ones who grow and grow with no trouble. Those are not the kids who linger in foster care. Those are certainly not the older kids and teenagers who age out of foster care and then are thrown out in the streets, usually with an array of medical and mental health issues. Are they too old to count?

And yeah, I’ve seen the babies, little hand-sized things barely clinging to life. There’s no glory, no wonder there. There is no wonder in a pregnant woman with five dollars to her name, so deep in depression you wonder if she’ll be alive in a week. Therapy costs money. Medicine costs money. Food, clothes, electricity cost money. Government assistance is a pittance; poverty drives women and girls into situations where they are forced to rely on people who abuse them to survive. (I’ve been up in more hospitals than I can count.)

In each and every dark pit of desperation, I have never seen a pro-lifer. I ain’t never seen them babysitting, scrubbing floors, bringing over goods, handing mom $50 bucks a month or driving her to the pediatrician. I ain’t never seen them sitting up for hours with an autistic child who screams and rages so his mother can get some sleep while she rests up from working 14-hour days. I don’t see them fixing leaks in rundown houses or playing with a kid while the police prepare to interview her about her sexual abuse. They’re not paying for the funerals of babies and children who died after birth, when they truly do become independent organisms. And the crazy thing is they think they’ve already done their job, because the child was born!

Aphids give birth, girl. It’s no miracle. You want to speak for the weak? Get off your high horse and get your hands dirty helping the poor, the isolated, the ill and mentally ill women and mothers and their children who already breathe the dirty air. You are doing nothing, absolutely nothing, for children. You don’t have a flea’s comprehension of injustice. You are not doing shit for life until you get in there and fight that darkness. Until you understand that abortion is salvation in a world like ours. Does that sound too hard? Do you really think suffering post-birth is more permissible, less worthy of outrage?

“Pro-life” is simply a philosophy in which the only life worth saving is the one that can be saved by punishing a woman.

I reblogged this about six months ago, but I feel it needs to be posted again. 

feministisnotadirtyword:

Yesterday, Michigan Representative Lisa Brown was banned from speaking after having the audacity to use the word “vagina” in a debate over an anti-abortion bill. Apparently, it’s not enough that Republicans have made it a political priority to roll back women’s reproductive rights—they also want to ensure that we remain silent as they do it.

Representative Mike Callton, for example, was absolutely scandalized by Brown’s comments: “What she said was offensive.… It was so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women. I would not say that in mixed company.” (He does realize that this mixed company likely has vaginas, yes?)

I wished this latest GOP gaffe surprised me, but Republicans feeling squirmy about women’s “down-theres” while desperately trying to keep said “hoo-hoos” in check is pretty standard these days. We live in a country where it’s fine to legislate vaginas, but saying the actual word is forbidden.

Is it run of the mill misogynist disgust of female bodies? Puritanical pearl-clutching? Or simply sexist legislators who would rather not be reminded that the vaginas they’re attempting to control have pesky women with opinions attached to them?

No matter the reason, it speaks volumes about the way in which Republicans would like women to participate in policy conversations that effect their health and lives: they wish we would just shut up already. It would be so much easier if we just left the important decisions about women’s bodies up to men!

But yesterday’s “controversy” sparked more laughter than outrage. Soon the hashtag #VaginaMovieLines was trending on Twitter. (I couldn’t help but add a few to the mix: “It rubs the vagina on its skin or else it gets the hose again.” “Life is like a box of vaginas, you never know what you’re gonna get.”)

It’s understandable—after all, it’s difficult not to get carried away in the absurdity of grown men having fainting spells over the v-word. But as eye-roll inducing as this incident may be, it’s also deadly serious. The legislation at the center of this debate—which has passed in the Michigan House—is being called the most restrictive anti-choice bill in the country. It bans all abortions after twenty weeks—even in cases of rape, incest and threats to a woman’s health. Women who have fetuses that will not survive birth would be required to carry them to term anyway. The bill also mandates regulations designed to make it near impossible for rural women to obtain abortions or for clinics to operate.

Despite the way in which this bill will run amok in women’s lives, homes and health, we’re expected to stay quiet. And it wasn’t just Brown who was silenced—women who had to terminate wanted pregnancies after twenty weeks because of severe fetal abnormalities were blocked from testifying in Michigan. It’s not just happening in one state, either. After all, who could forget the all-male panel on birth control?

Republicans are systematically and deliberately trying to silence women’s voices and experiences. Not because they find “vagina” offensive—because they find the idea of women controlling their own bodies and lives offensive. Because they find us offensive. Republicans can shroud their misogyny in huffy rhetoric about “decorum,” but women know the truth. We just have to keep saying it.

trigger warnings on abortion posts

lifeaccordingtomorgan:

I am sick to death of not seeing them.

I do not care how fucking pro-choice you are, you NEED to acknowledge that abortions are not always pleasant experiences.

I am 100% pro-choice, I know that the option to have an abortion is a human right, but I also understand completely that it may not always be an option someone is 100% positive about for any reason.

I also understand that pro-lifers like to use the argument that abortions can lead to mental health issues for the person involved, but you cannot counter that argument by denying the fact that it happens altogether, arguing that all people are happy and relieved to have had an abortion and ignoring that your discussions may trigger some people.

Some things you might want to say to the abortion/mental health argument:

-the person involved may be feeling undue guilt due to having a pro-life biased education

-the person may be choosing abortion because it is the least unpleasant outcome, though it is not altogether pleasant to have to make that decision as they would desire to carry the fetus to full term should they have the option (though I don’t encourage the use of this example ALL the time as it perpetuates the idea that some people have less justifiable abortions, you could use the example of someone who may have a health condition which puts them at risk of dying should they give birth)

If you see people posting regarding abortion, PLEASE encourage them to post a trigger warning.