Inland, Dreaming of Waves

Into our own hands

Today is the thirty-third anniversary of the Supreme Court handing down its decision in Roe v. Wade.

How long this anniversary seems from the spring of 2004, when I flew east to join the March for Women’s Lives in Washington, D.C., and felt briefly hopeful about women’s rights in this country. The more I consider the political landscape since then, the more I see how false that hope was and how urgently change is needed.

After Bush won reelection, I gave up on traditional methods of securing women’s reproductive rights. Since the confirmation of John Roberts and the nomination of Harriet Miers and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, I have harbored grave doubts about the longevity of Roe v. Wade. And ever since pharmacists have started organizing for the right not to fill prescriptions, I’ve worried about the availability of birth control.

Let’s face it: since the 1980s, the Right has been gaining ground. I don’t see the Left gaining ground. Instead, I see members of the Left crossing over in order to win the enemy’s support. What kind of fight is that?

A better option for women would be for them to return to the basics of providing reproductive care for themselves, using some old methods and some new ones.

At first I thought of flashing pictures of women who’ve died from abortions to counter the pictures of fetuses. I wanted to organize a wave of righteously angry pro-choice women and men to drive so-called Christian protestors far from clinics and other public spaces. We’d herd them home and protest at their houses and businesses, do unto them exactly as they do unto abortion doctors. Operation Save America recently posted fliers in Dr. Warren Hern’s neighborhood in Boulder and got away with it, so I thought, why not turn their methods on them and see if they’re flattered by the imitation?

But that would involve fighting on their terms. I cannot stress strongly enough that women who care about access to reproductive rights must cease to engage with the Right and make choice a reality, instead of waiting for the courts and legislatures to grant it.

We need to take abortion underground where protestors and legislators and prosecutors cannot find it. Wherever we take it, we need to keep it safe (whether it’s legal or not, whether Roe v. Wade stands or not). To do so, we need a network of doctors who will smuggle emergency contraception and RU-486 to women who need them, doctors who can teach medical residents and nurses in their area to perform safe surgical abortions, thus creating an ever-expanding network of abortion providers. Other people would be solicited to provide funding for these underground abortions and, at some point in time, money to purchase the contraceptive method of her choice for every American woman who cannot afford to pay for it herself.

These “clinics” would have to be highly mobile, not only to get services as quickly as possible to the women and girls who need them most, but also to avoid triggering state laws that criminalize transporting a minor across state lines for an abortion. They would need to be easily dismantled into their component parts, thus making them harder to track.

Why make this proposal?

Because I’m sick of the rhetoric and disgusted by the amounts of money spent by both sides since 1973, when Roe v. Wade was handed down. (I wonder how much health care for women all those dollars would have bought.)

And because I think that women should be making these decisions for themselves. We must get over the idea that we need permission from our government to exercise our right to choose.

And because I believe that in a few years, women will desperately need the service I propose. Some need it now.

posted by Price of Silence @ 9:31 PM