Quantifying 'survival' : A Woman's Right to Choose

 Quantifying 'survival' : A Woman's Right to Choose

Oregon election could decide abortion rights for all states & all women

Shawn Thew, European Press photo Agency

 

Megan Chambers, 30, lives in Portland, Oregon — “the north star of reproductive rights.”

When Chambers was 27, she was trapped in an abusive marriage and was the mother of two young children. Chambers was also expecting a third child; however, she did not want to be pregnant.

ACLU of Oregon

A Medicaid patient, Chambers made a decision — a decision she said she has never had second thoughts about. A choice that cost Chambers nothing out of pocket — a result of living in a state that is considered “the most progressive state on abortion rights” in the United States.

Chambers had an abortion.

“I had done the emotional and physical labor of parenting two kids … So I chose myself and my children,” Chambers said.

Chambers knows the cost of motherhood, but anti-abortion groups and Oregon lawmakers are trying to speak for mothers across the entire state. They are trying to take away Chambers’s ability to choose, and if they succeed, women in Oregon, who rely on tax dollars to pay for their healthcare, will be stripped of their freedom to choose.

Chambers’s story is not valued by Michigan political officials and anti-abortion groups, but her medical bill is.

If abortion rights are taken away in this “liberal utopia,” what is protecting women everywhere from being subject to the same kind of decision making, leaving them powerless over their own bodies.

“Anti-abortion groups could use this as a rallying cry to go after other states and ultimately reopen the debate on Roe vs. Wade, allowing the now Conservative-leaning Supreme Court to overturn a law that’s stood since 1973,” writes Lindsay Schnell, USA Today reporter.

In Oregon, this topic has been politicized and is being framed as an economic debate. Anti-abortion group members are proposing an amendment to the Oregon constitution, Measure 106, a change that will eliminate elective abortions for anyone who relies on state-funded health insurance.

It’s one of three anti-abortion measures before voters this November in the latest effort to dramatically limit abortion access in America,” Schnell reports. “West Virginia and Alabama, two typically red states are also voting on anti-abortion initiatives.”

Oregon Live

This debate is not new. 

Issues surrounding reproductive rights are simply being reframed. For years, politicians and organizations have tried to dictate a woman’s right to choose how she controls her body — specifically women who rely on government-funded programs and who are considered to be low-income individuals.

The neo-Malthusian movement promoted the idea of eugenics, a type of thinking that ranks the reproduction of select groups as being more “valuable” and “worthy” (Takeshita, 9) compared to others.

When officials and neo-Malthusians were worried about the “population boom” (12), they took matters into their own hands by convincing the World Health Organization to take on family planning as a program and established the United Nations Population Fund (11). 

United Nations, Contraceptive Use

 

The irony: these individuals were not looking at women as people. Instead, they saw them as a threat; however, not all women were viewed as a threat. Low-income, minorities became the targets of free IUDs, abortion kits, and other methods of birth control in the global South. While members of the global South were given these technologies, they were not informed of the damage they would do to their bodies.

Birth control and other methods of contraceptives then grew to be seen as weapons used “to fight these battles” of overpopulation, poverty, the cold war, and a potential communist takeover (Takeshita 12).

Women have become part of the problem, and officials have turned birth control into their controller — not women’s. Decisions were economically motivated and turned birth control into a masculine issue and economic discussion, and sadly, not much has changed today.

The debate in Oregon is driven by economic arguments, creating a “backdoor ban on abortion” as Measure 106 proponents have targeted the state’s poorest residents — people who will have to pay $400 to $600 out of their own pocket for abortion procedures, according to ABC News.  

“In many ways, Oregon is the North Star when it comes to reproductive rights and abortion access, and if we, in this election, were to lose, it would be incredibly emboldening to the anti-abortion movement,” said Grayson Dempsey, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon. “It’s really scary to me to know that we have one of the most serious threats to abortion in Oregon in my lifetime.”

Yes on Measure 106

Much like women in the global South, voters in Oregon are not being properly educated about the implications of Measure 106. While voters were not in favor of a similar proposal in 1978 and 1986, this year, their economic side is being appealed to.

“Those supporting the measure say it’s not an attack on abortion but an attempt to give Oregon residents a say in how their tax dollars are spend after years with no referendums on the issue,” writes Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press reporter.

Instead of seeing people, people are being seen as dollar signs.

Megan Chambers is not a threat. Chambers is a human being, a person — a woman with a story, but her story is being ignored by groups motivated by economic, religious, and chauvinistic agendas.

Patricia Ramirez/The Inquisitor

Chambers is one in about 3,600 women who had abortions last year, amounting to $2 million.

3,600 women who had the opportunity to make a choice without having to worry about cost.

“They’re choosing survival,” Chambers said. 

A person’s right to choose cannot be quantified.  

Relevant course reading: 

Takeshita, Chikako. The Global Biopolitics of the IUD: How Science Constructs Contraceptive Users and Women's Bodies. The MIT Press, 2012.

The Dire Situation for Refugee Women

2018 statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

Did you hear about the recent announcement of the refugee ceiling for 2019? If not, it’s understandable as the announcement was quietly released amidst the chaos of Hurricane Florence and the Kavanaugh hearings, and has largely become lost in the fray.

Either way, hopefully you are listening now. The administration just announced that the 2019 refugee ceiling will be capped at 30,000 people, down from 45,000 last year. This is the lowest rate in the history of the U.S. refugee resettlement program. To give some context, in 2017, under Obama, the refugee ceiling was set at 100,000.

(An important note: the ways in which the Trump administration is changing both the rhetoric and policies surrounding the refugee resettlement and immigration are at times blatant, yet more often are nuanced and subtle. For an engaging update on the more hidden and bureaucratic tactics of the government, here is a highly recommended podcast from This American Life. )

The dramatic reduction of refugees in the U.S. from 100,000 to 30,000 in just 2 years is not reflective of a decreased number of displaced individuals worldwide, nor is it signaling a resolution to the refugee crisis. On the contrary, this cut comes during the highest level of human displacement in the history of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Currently, there an unprecedented 68.5 forcibly displaced peopleacross the world, 25.4 million of which are officially classified as refugees.

Women and girls account for 50% of the refugee, stateless, and internally displaced populations. 

Click the link for more photos from a collection of women refugees from the past  100 years.

It is important to highlight the number of women and girls who are  forcibly displaced because of the increased risks they face, on top of the great challenges of being a refugee, because they are women. Refugees are defined as someone with " a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group" (UNHCR). Therefore, all refugees are already in extremely perilous situations as they flee violence and repression, often with very little personal belongings, money, or access to food or water as they flee. Many end up in refugee camps, and while aid organizations try their best, resources are strained and refugees remain very vulnerable. 

For women the dangers are infinitely higher. 

Anne Firth Murray, author of "From Outrage to Courage: Women Taking Action for Health and Justice", writes extensively about women in conflict and refugee situations. Murray writes, "The gender bias that fuels violence against women during periods of peace boils over and intensifies in conflict situations as military officials ignore or sanction gross violations of human rights" (Murray, 2008). The disparate treatment of women is exacerbated during displacement, leaving women vulnerable to abuses such as rape, forced pregnancy, trafficking and prostitution, torture, and death. Currently, for women in Greek refugee camps, even showering and other daily activities can be unsafe.  Women are vulnerable to abuse by authorities and even volunteers from NGOs who are ostensibly there to help them. Over 46% of women refugees told researchers that they felt unsafe living in refugee camps (Aljazeera, 2017).

Women's bodies are weaponized and used as bargaining pieces or to intimidate in conflict. Women are also often the caregivers of children and are responsible for their wellbeing as well during conflict, which may limit their options and make things more difficult 

as they try to protect more than one life. 

Refugee women also face specific health concerns that must be addressed in any conversation about global women’s health. An important example to consider is reproductive health, because one quarter of women refugees are of reproductive age (Murray, 2008). Pregnancy and birth during displacement often means inadequate nutrition and clean water and unattended births. In the best of times, many women in developing countries do not have reliable access to birth control or protections against STIs. During displacement, this limited access is interrupted all while rape and sexual assault become rampant. Abortions stand in for birth control and the WHO estimates unsafe abortions result in 25 to 50% of maternal deaths of refugee women (Murray, 2008). Murray tells the heart wrenching and true story of widowed Rwandan women who was forced to keep the child of her rapist, after all 7 of her children and husband had been killed.

The conflict in Syria shows no signs of decreasing, the persecution of Rohingya minority in Myanmar is ongoing, and violence continues to plague many countries, like Afghanistan and South Sudan. The unprecedented numbers of refugees will likely continue to increase. And yet, the U.S. seemingly unaware of these increases, continues to dramatically cut the resettlement program. Recently, Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, announced that domestic abuse is not a consideration for granting asylum cases. The message to women? The violence you are fleeing in your countries of origin are not valid enough; you do not deserve our help.

Now, more than ever, the United States needs to welcome refugees. Rather than shrinking the refugee resettlement program. The tens of millions of women and girl refugees facing oppression and terrible violence cannot afford to wait.

Reference:

Murray, Anne Firth. (2008). From Outrage to Courage: Women Taking Action for Health and Justice. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press.