Of Food Banks & Abortion Debates

Sat, 09 Jul 2022 11:23:58 GMT

Amazing what people will donate to food pantries. Half-eaten boxes of stale cereal. Open jars of pickles. Jars of marshmallow cream that expired in 2013. Gift cards with a 9¢ balance.

I suppose the impulse behind donations like this is basically a good one—this stuff shouldn’t go to waste—but we spend the first hour of every shift throwing this stuff away.

The rule of thumb for all food bank donations should be: Do not donate anything you wouldn’t eat (or use) yourself.

Also—most food banks have enough cans of beans in their inventories to last until the sun goes red giant. Just sayin’.

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And Flavia most decidedly did not say she was backing down from the abortion-rights fight. If anything, she is more committed than ever.

Which leaves me wondering about my own eagerness and relief when I thought I heard she was backing off—thereby giving me tacit permission to back off.

I guess I’m tired of being an activist.

And I don’t see that a lifetime of activism has actually accomplished all that much—either politically or for me personally.

As a feminist, the best thing I ever did was participate in the Berkeley Women’s Feminist Health Collective where for 18 months, with speculum in hand, I took women on guided tours of their own genitalia.

We live in vagina-positive times now, so it’s easy to forget that 45 years ago—which is not so far in the past—most American women were indoctrinated to believe their own genitals were ugly mysterious anatomical parts that shouldn’t be examined too closely.

Would you like to see what your cervix looks like? I’d ask. After I got done administering the STD test or the pregnancy test and doling out the fluconazole, penicillin pills, and abortion referrals.

About half of them did.

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Tromping yesterday, I listened to a This American Life podcast about the closure of the last abortion clinic in Mississippi.

One of the true-life stories was about a logistics coordinator who was trying to find a clinic where a woman who was 25 weeks pregnant could terminate her pregnancy.

But they have the technology to save 24-week preemies, I thought. The survival rate for 24-week preemies is quite high, between 60 and 70%, and while it’s true, 40% of those saved 24-week preemies go on to develop long-term health problems that impact their quality of life, 60% do not.

That’s one thing I haven’t seen referenced in the reams of verbiage spilled since the Dobbs decision was issued: the impact that preemie survival rates may be having on the whole debate.

The other interesting legal issue is what effect the language in the individual state statutes is likely to have on IVF.

The compromise, I suppose, would be a ban on abortions beyond 15 or 20 weeks—which is where most of Europe is at on the issue.

But how does that work with the old rallying cry, My body, my choice?

And also, if it’s your body and your choice, doesn’t that give you permission to be a COVID vaccine skeptic?

It’s all too complicated.

Easiest to say, I don’t want to think about it anymore.

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Roe v. Wade Overturned. Lysol Sales Spike!

Tue, 03 May 2022 16:46:09 GMT

Wow.

Apparently, the Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe v. Wade.

I’m not entirely sure what to think.

I get the logic: States do retain primary responsibility for health under the U.S. Constitution. I’m no lawyer, but construing the Constitution’s rather nebulous 14th Amendment to guarantee a right to privacy has always seemed like a stretch to me.

Still.

I’m not buying the sanctity of all human life arguments being pushed by patriarchal assholes in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Georgia & Florida—those being the states that have already or are most likely to enact strict abortion constraints once Roe v. Wade officially topples.

If the patriarchal assholes in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Georgia & Florida really gave a shit about the sanctity of human life, they would enact legislation to mitigate the devastating effects of the staggering levels of childhood poverty in those states.

But they don’t.

Leading one to believe that it’s not the sanctity of human life they want to protect but rather a multi-tiered social system in which the people at the bottom are truly suffering.

I mean—can you really enjoy your privilege without the opportunity to look down on all those people who don’t have your privilege? Without the opportunity to gloat?

Hey! You had sex! Maybe you even had an orgasm! Well, this will teach you to try to find pleasure!

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Full disclosure: I’ve had three abortions.

I was conscientious about birth control. I used barrier methods: diaphragms, IUDs. (I didn’t like what pills did to my body.). Birth control doesn’t always work.

I’ve read countless human interest stories about women who’ve had abortions. For many of them, it seems to have been an agonizing decision.

It wasn’t for me.

I never had the slightest twinge of regret about my abortions.

Not at the time. Not afterward.

I went on to give birth to two children.

Having had abortions didn’t impair my ability to be a good mother in any way.

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I’ve written several times before in this very space about the likelihood that Roe v. Wade would be overturned.

I was and remain very, very puzzled that there isn’t more outrage among sexually active women of reproductive age and concluded that this must have something to do with the availability of chemical abortion: These days, more than half the abortions in this country are facilitated through the use of the pills mifepristone and misoprostol.

A pill-facilitated abortion is so much less messy than a surgical abortion! And surely, it’s the mess that all those thunderous old patriarchs, those snipe-faced anti-abortion protestors are objecting to, right? All those little fetuses washing down the drain and into America’s sewer systems!

Those women might want to give the issue another think-through.

Because medication abortion is likely to be subject to many of the same restrictions as surgical abortion methods.

If you’re a fan of old ads like I am, you will have noticed the prolificacy of ads from the pre-World War II era that tout the use of Lysol as a douche to keep your lady parts clean and, uh, fresh-smelling.

Since having sex doesn’t make your pussy smell bad but the use of Lysol will, one is forced to conclude that smell wasn’t really the issue here.

So what was?

This article does a good job of tracking the evidence that Lysol was widely used as a contraceptive—and when contraception failed, as an abortifacient. The code is clear in the advertisement above: Note the calendar on the wall above the weeping woman: a missed period.

The piece quotes a 1969 article in The New England Journal of Medicine that speculated that between 200,000 and one million illegal abortions were taking place in the U.S. every year in those pre-Roe v. Wade times. Abortifacients of choice were Lysol, permanganate, knitting needles, wire coat hangers etc, etc.

Overturning Roe v. Wade is not going to eliminate abortion.

Overturning Roe v. Wade is merely going to increase the sales of Lysol and knitting needles.

As well as increase the number of deaths among sexually active women of reproductive age.

Better case scenario: A modern-day underground railroad for abortion patients.

Though I believe one of the states that recently passed anti-abortion legislation—Texas?—actually is actually trying to make it illegal to travel to another state to get an abortion.

I can’t see how that could possibly stand up in court.

But we live in deeply fundamentalist and disturbing times.

So who knows?

In the meantime, the National Network of Abortion Funds has a list of organizations in most states that help women who can’t afford to travel to get an abortion:

https://abortionfunds.org/

I just made my donation!

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In other news: Just got my second COVID booster. Timed it for maximum efficacy when I am in Sicily.

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Of Food Banks & Abortion Debates

Roe v. Wade Overturned. Lysol Sales Spike!