samsonismydog:

I am reposting this because I had made it slightly private before. I think we need to share our stories, our rage, our passion and our fight for women’s rights with each other. Send me your story at shookw@gmail.com and I will post it on my tumblr. Write me about the process, what you felt, who supported you, why you took advantage of your right to choose.. anything. We need to make it known that we are not alone!

Thursday, May 3rd:

I recently discovered that I am four weeks pregnant. At first I was shocked, then I was scared, then I felt ashamed.. and now I am enraged. I think that unwed pregnancies need to stop having such a fucking taboo attached to them. I don’t know how our culture can shove sex in our faces through food and clothing ads, television shows, movies and the like.. and then shame us when we .. what? get pregnant? the result of having sex.. which is encouraged in so many aspects of our lives. I need to talk to other women about this. Other women need to talk to other women about this.. Today at planned parenthood I learned that 1 in every 3 women will have an abortion. 1 IN EVERY 3 WOMEN WILL HAVE AN ABORTION. I was so fucking shocked to hear that because YOU WOULD NEVER GUESS. PART OF TEACHING PEOPLE ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IS LETTING OTHERS KNOW WHO IS TAKING ADVANTAGE OF REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS. I want to call my dad and say, “Yo, I’m getting an abortion. A vote for Romney is a vote against me having the future I want.. are you ready to be a grandfather?”

Everything is pretty fucked up, but I am so grateful that I am able to have choice. It is time for me to fight back against this shame, speak out about what I am going through and teach others that they are not alone in this experience. Lezzzdoooit together.

*if you don’t have a story but want to support the women who do, please reblog and pass this on.

[Cis women are not the only people who can become pregnant and/or need abortions.]

I think sharing and telling stories about unplanned/unwanted pregnancies and abortions is the only way we’re going to get rid of the stigma surrounding it. I think if more people knew just how many people around them were affected by this, the shit Republicans are trying to pull around the country wouldn’t fly.

private-revolution:

prolongedeyecontact:

inchristhopeisfound:

You had your 15 minutes of fame many decades ago, please stop.

I am so sick of seeing politicians and talking heads using the death of this teenager to their benefit. Mr. Sharpton if you care about this one African American boy being killed, how come you show no interest in the MILLIONS of African American lives that have been ended by abortion? Even today, in 2012 there are hundreds of African American unborn humans being destroyed in the womb. And though there’s nothing that could make that any worse than it already is, Mr. Sharpton many of these lives are being ended by white doctors, who are making good money off of slaying what is your people.

I don’t know who you’re trying to fool. You support a president who supports abortion at ANY stage in pregnancy, including late term abortions. You support a black man, who supports the PAID MURDER OF HIS OWN PEOPLE.

Do you cry for the souls lost to abortion?

Do you protest outside of clinics that purposely target poor black communities?

Are you angered by Planned Parenthoods dark, racist past? 

Are you supporting pregnancy centers, so women can access free resources for their children and families?

If Travon Martin’s life was ended for $450 dollars at an abortion clinic, would you still fight for him? Would you still hold rallies? Would you still weep and pray?

Travon Martin’s life was cut tragically short, no doubt about it. Thankfully, he got to experience life, even though he only had a short 17 years to do so. But will we turn a blind eye against the Travon’s that are still in the womb? 

NO. You are complete and utter SCUM for making Trayvon Martin’s murder by a racist man and a racist society about you and your RACIST FUCKING ANTICHOICE AGENDA. You think I can’t see through you? You think PoC can’t see through you and your disingenuous lies? This is just further proof that white, christian antis don’t give a fuck about Black people once they’re born. You gotta use their deaths for propaganda so you can control pregnant Black people. Let’s get a few things straight right now:

Spell the kid’s name right, first off. TRAYVON MARTIN. Learn it, burn it into your memory, and ask yourself why you feel entitled to take such a stance against MoC like Rev. Al Sharpton and President Barack Obama.

There is no “black genocide” happening when pregnant people of color get abortions. They don’t have it in for black embryos. They aren’t aiding in the destruction of their own people. They are utilizing their reproductive rights! JFC.

Planned Parenthood was not founded by Sanger to exterminate black people.

Planned Parenthood does not “target black neighborhoods.” This idea that abortion clinics are targeting black neighborhoods is patently false and has been thoroughly debunked. Guttmacher has a report that found that fewer than 1 in 10 abortion clinics are in neighborhoods that are predominantly black. Further, they found that 63% of clinics were in neighborhoods where one half or more of residents were non-hispanic white. They also have a followup report.

Planned Parenthood doctors are not in a lucrative business. Does the term NON-profit mean nothing to you?

CPCs are shit.

Black pregnant people do have higher rates of abortion, but that’s because they have higher rates of unintended pregnancy (67%). And that’s a result of INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM, poverty, discrimination, lack of access to healthcare and contraception and sex education, among other things. In addition, in terms of total numbers Non-Hispanic Black pregnant people make up only 30% of total abortions whereas Non-Hispanic White pregnant people account for 36%. Lastly, the fertility rate of Black and White people capable of being pregnant are on par with one another and the population growth of the Black community is not in decline due to high abortion rates.

Here’s what a WoC thinks of your offensive and derogatory billboards and racist claims about black people killing their own people with abortion [again, burn it into your memory, you might learn something]:

“Billboard Babylon” by Cherisse Scott

Black Children Are An Endangered Species?

Every 21 Minutes The Next Possible Leader Is Aborted?

The Most Unsafe Place For An African American Child Is In My Womb? 

I Guess You Assumed You Could Say What You Wanted In Jesus’ Name 

And I Would Let It Slide

Let It Ride Like You Rode A Ship And Talked Some Shit 

To Bring Me To A Land That Wasn’t Mine

Told My King I’d Be Fine And That You’d Be Kind 

But As The Story Goes 500 Years Later 

And You Still Lying

You Wasn’t Trying To ‘Make Me Betta’

At Night Together We Conceived That Child 

Forced Me To Breed That Child 

More Stock To Tend More Crops For Your Hard Labor

Back Broke, Culture Choked 

Vilifying Me ‘Cause I’m Trying To Survive

Blaming Me Of Committing Genocide?

I Just Been Trying To Live Inside America And This Dream

Trying To Keep Hope Alive While You Keep The Pope Alive

And The Pedophiles Who Would Rape That Same Child And Sweep It Under Rugs

Hail Mary’s And Hugs With Hues Of Red White And Blue

With Liberty And Justice For Only You 

My Womb Produced All The Leaders You Constantly Kill

Every 21 Minutes A Black Child Is Faced With The Real Deal 

On 58th & State 

Swallowed The Blue Pill But The Matrix Is Hate, Racial Profiling, And Rape

Prayin’ For A Clean Slate After Bargains And Pleas

Endangered In A Land Of Thieves, But A Species?

Insensitivity At Its Best 

Culturally Incompetent

Civil Unrest

Misinformed

Unworthy To Lead A Charge Then Charge Me With Murder!

Where Are You After Our Babies Are Born?

You Scorn, Jack Welfare & Health Reform

Sons And Daughters Mourned Over Caskets And Graves

But Not By My Hand

Ain’t Never Been My Plan To Kill The Next Black Man

Yet You Stand Blameless As If You Really Give A Damn

You Eating Filet Mignon, Baby Eating Spam

Food Deserts, Polluted Air

Shit Schools Setting Rules For Ritalin Ridden Babies

You Take A Time Out! 

And Put Some Time In  

Cause You Don’t Comprehend My Beginning Or My End

Covering My Roots Like Thieves Cover Tracks

One Nation Under God

Indivisible ‘Til We Visualized A Leader 

Targeting Me Again As A Breeder

With His Picture To Mock Me

Billboards To Shock Me 

This Ain’t Shit But The Next Plan To Block Me

But I See You…Pharisee.

Black Preachers Gon’ Wild 

Crucifying Queens 

Pimpin’ King James For Fame

In Jesus’ Name Pitting Blame

Like God Is Pleased 

You The Disease In The Village That We Just…Can’t…Shake

But My Back Is Something You Just…Can’t…Break

Flexible Like The Willow

Bosom Soft Like A Pillow That Was Used To Nurse

Yo Foul Ass

If I Wasn’t Spiritual I’d Curse 

Yo Foul Ass

But You Already Done

Til You Do Right By Me The Race Ain’t Run, The Spin Ain’t Spun 

You Think You’ve Won But It’s Only Just Begun

Like A Sucka Punch When You Least Expect It

I’ll Be There

Leading A Healthy Life In Spite Of Your Hypocrisy

I’ll Be There

Raising A Healthy Family Rooted In Democracy

I’ll Be There

Doing What Black Women Have Always Had To Do In Spite Of You

Rebuke That Shit…

And Continue.

Excerpt from Is Abortion ‘Black Genocide’? by Kathryn Joyce:

The argument leaves Black women facing the accusation that they are either fools or murderers—and either way complicit in what Mark Crutcher says is Planned Parenthood’s sinister plan for “convincing the target group to commit mass suicide.” The accusation cuts to the heart of an intersection of sexism and racism for Black women, who have historically been pressed to choose allegiance between two aspects of their beings: their gender and the race.

It continues today. Maame Mensima-Horn, an African American activist based in Miami who consulted for SisterSong, says that the “Black genocide” argument has remained a male-driven conversation that shuts out women of color and ignores the role they have played in the reproductive justice movement. MensimaHorn sees a new generation of male activists relegating women to “breeder” status and blaming them for a deficit in the Black population.

It seems a neat return to the 1920s debate in the Black community about how to best uplift the race. W.E.B. DuBois argued for “quality versus quantity,” saying that Black interests were best met by family planning that allowed parents to invest more in fewerchildren, not by simply birthing greater numbers. In 2010, Catherine Davis of Georgia Right to Life seems to take the latter position, saying that if Black women hadn’t had abortions, “we would be 59 million strong.”

The emphasis underscores a history of sexism in the Civil Rights Movement and its institutions, says Gray, in which Black women’s intellectual and physical labor was the backbone of the movement yet was rarely acknowledged. To day, “Black genocide” movement leaders, such as Childress and King, emphasize male leadership in both the movement and church—not surprising in conservative circles, but the destructive effect on women of color continues.

For Gray, this kind of sexism is a result of White fundamentalist outreach as well as a symptom of a larger problem: the breakdown of political education in Black politics.

He says, The result of it is that we have people claiming that the maafa is the abortion of black kids, instead of what it really is: the great catastrophe related to the slave trade. It means a bunch of frauds can rewrite your history and make it everything that it’s not. The freedom movement, which is what civil rights is about, is about the freedom of citizens to determine their lives for themselves and make their own opportunities.

And not, Grays says, to become a mother “because these people think you ought to be a mother. ”

How about what Sister Song thinks of your bullshit?

Our opposition research revealed how data and facts were mis-used by anti-abortionists to posit a “conspiracy theory” based on a historically racist past to claim that policymakers, black leaders, health officials, and community activists who support reproductive justice are all part of a scheme to kill off the black race. The cornerstone of their genocide theory is the fact that the black birth rate has declined over a number of years. While birthrates for all races of women have also declined for decades because of educational and economic opportunities, and increased reproductive health services, abortion opponents never mention the decision making of black women and how our improving educational and economic status influenced our reproductive choices.

Black women have always controlled our fertility when we could, even during the horrific conditions of enslavement. We brought knowledge from Africa as midwives that helped us practice birth control and have abortions. After the end of slavery, we were more determined than ever to end the forced breeding of our bodies, and we cut our birth rate in half in the first 40 years after the Civil War, 110 years before abortion or birth control was legalized. We continued this intentional decline as part of our racial uplift strategy, to have fewer children to provide more opportunities for the ones we did have. Ignorance of our history and lies about our agency malign the memories of our ancestors.

Black women, however, do have three times more abortions than white women, a statistic anti-abortionists use to demonize abortion providers. In fact, black women do have more unintended pregnancies, have less access to contraception, stay single longer, often have sex earlier, are poorer, are more vulnerable to childhood sexual abuse, and experience single motherhood much more than their white counterparts. Sixty-one percent of black women who have abortions already have children. The higher rate of abortion is an understandable outcome of the social context in which we find ourselves.

Higher unintended pregnancy rates are not a new phenomenon for black women. Before the legalization of abortion in 1973, African American women were thirteen times more likely to die from illegal abortions than white women. For reproductive justice activists, the solution to reduce the need for abortions is to help black women have fewer unintended pregnancies and to eliminate the obstacles that interfere with personal decision making.

We emphasized the agency and decision making of black women to refute their “disappearing race” narrative. Using historical data and current work by black women’s organizations, we projected the image of strong black women in defense of our own bodies, not the puppets of either the medical industry or the anti-abortion movement.

Another anti-abortion tactic was to claim that abortion clinics are “always” located in African American communities, especially by Planned Parenthood. In Georgia, we were able to easily refute this claim by presenting demographic data that proved that of the 15 abortion clinics in our state, only 4 are in predominantly black neighborhoods. Abortion opponents frequently use this “geographical” tactic against providers to bolster their conspiracy theories. While we were in the middle of the fight in Georgia, we were contacted by a Planned Parenthood clinic in Nashville that had recently relocated near an African American community for economic reasons that had nothing to do with race, but they were also accused of selecting their location to “kill black babies.” An accusatory billboard was erected directly across the street from the new clinic.

We retold the story of Margaret Sanger and her allegedly racist agenda. Left unchallenged, their narrative about genocide would powerfully echo in the black community. We decided to do our own research on Sanger and present the facts from the perspectives of black women.

We contacted Sanger’s biographer, Ellen Chesler, and asked Joyce Follet, an expert on Planned Parenthood’s archives in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, to provide original source materials and information. They provided a wealth of historical evidence that belied the allegations of our opponents. Most importantly, we were able to prove that African American leaders, particularly women, had worked with Sanger in the 1930s to ask for clinics to be opened in black communities. We challenged their historical revisionism by citing famous leaders like Mary McLeod Bethune, W.E.B. Dubois, Walter White, Mary Church Terrell, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and organizations like the NAACP, the National Urban League, and the National Council of Negro Women. We dared them to call these icons of the civil rights movement pawns of a racist agenda. In the eyes of the black community, our opponents had an uphill climb to prove they knew more about helping the African American community than the famous legends they were maligning.

Go read the whole thing. Seriously, I’ll wait.

Now let’s listen to Loretta Ross, “Re-enslaving African American Women”:

[…]

African American women who care about reproductive justice know that the limited membership in the Black anti-abortion movement doesn’t represent our views and we are not fooled into thinking that they care about gender justice for women. In fact, if they had their way, we would be re-enslaved once again, based on our fertility.

[…]

They tell African American women that we are now responsible for the genocide of our own people. Talk about a “blame the victim” strategy! We are now accused of “lynching” our children in our wombs and practicing white supremacy on ourselves. Black women are again blamed for the social conditions in our communities and demonized by those who claim they only want to save our souls (and the souls of our unborn children). This is what lies on steroids look like.

[…]

The sexism in their viewpoints is mind-boggling. To them, Black women are the poor dupes of the abortion rights movement, lacking agency and decision-making of our own. In fact, this is a reassertion of Black male supremacy over the self-determination of women. It doesn’t matter whether it is from the lips of a man or a woman. It is about re-enslaving Black women by making us breeders for someone else’s cause.

I am reminded of the comments of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress, who dismissed the genocide argument when asked to discuss her views on abortion and birth control:

To label family planning and legal abortion programs “genocide” is male rhetoric, for male ears. It falls flat to female listeners and to thoughtful male ones. Women know, and so do many men, that two or three children who are wanted, prepared for, reared amid love and stability, and educated to the limit of their ability will mean more for the future of the Black and brown races from which they come than any number of neglected, hungry, ill-housed and ill-clothed youngsters.

[…]

But mostly, we need to let the world know that they do not speak for Black women. As my mother would say, “they might be our color, but they are not our kind.”

“Rep. Moore (WI) Tells Anti-Choice GOP Where to Shove Black Genocide Lie”

Click link for transcript and background info from Colorlines^.

In conclusion:

TRAYVON MARTIN was 17 years old. He had hopes and dreams. He had friends. He had a family that loved him, a family that is grieving for him and STILL haven’t gotten justice for his brutal and cold-blooded murder. Don’t you dare compare this young man to a fucking embryo. That’s disgusting and dehumanizing and a belittling of what PoC are feeling right now. How dare you co-opt a murder and use it against Black people capable of getting pregnant to insinuate that their desire to not be pregnant is destroying their entire race and is the same as a racist piece of shit killing someone’s child?! 

This is a fellow white person telling you to get off your self-righteous high horse so PoC don’t have to deal with your racist ass ever again, especially not during their time of mourning.

You.Are.Disgusting.

That is all.

Epic takedown is epic.

I just need this complete and utter thing of beauty on my blog right now.

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

I keep wanting to scream, “TRANSVAGINAL ULTRASOUNDS ARE ALREADY HAPPENING RIGHT NOW TODAY IN TEXAS!!!!”

Texas has THREE times as many people as Virginia AND they already have mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds before abortions (I also have no hard data but I’m going to guess that Texas probably also has a much larger poor population and a higher percentage of minorities, both groups which have so many barriers to accessing abortion as it is).

I’m glad people are mad about Virginia. I’m glad Amy Poehler is talking about it on SNL. I’m glad that people whom I’ve never seen speak up about this issue are now because of what is POSSIBLY going to happen in Virginia. I’m pleased with these developments.

But please, let’s STOP talking about mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds like they MAY happen. THEY ARE HAPPENING.

newwavefeminism:

redlightpolitics:

Super Bowl Viewers Will See Graphic Anti-Abortion Ads With Pictures Of Bloody Fetuses

America: where nothing we believe in actually makes sense… smh…

bebinn:

I’ve found new resources for people in need of access, funds, transportation, and lodging for abortions, so I’m compiling all my posts on the subject into one, for easy reference:

Need Help Paying for an Abortion? - National Network of Abortion Funds and The National Abortion Federation

Abortion Funds by State

National Abortion Funds (United States)

International Abortion Funds