BOOKS / Ken Wachsberger : 'Second Chances' is Pro-Choice Novel

The pro-choice novel:
'Love Means Second Chances'

By Ken Wachsberger / The Rag Blog / May 3, 2012

[Love Means Second Chances by Susan Elizabeth Davis (2011: Bread and Roses Collaborative); Paperback; 256 pp.; $16]

Susan Elizabeth Davis has written a self-consciously political novel complete with website and blog that she hopes will become a literary weapon in the pro-choice arsenal. At a time when women are having to defend themselves from humanist instincts straight out of the Dark Ages, her timing couldn’t be better. As a life-long activist for women’s rights, in particular to control their own bodies, she is the right person to write it.

Love Means Second Chances takes place in 1992 with flashbacks to 1972. Christy gets pregnant with Ramon even though she’s on the pill because for a brief period she was on antibiotics for strep and the antibiotics rendered the pill ineffective. Impending motherhood puts a crimp on Christy’s ambition to be an opera singer, not a pipe dream by any means as she is currently a student at Juilliard.

Christy tries to keep the news from Carole, her mother, a devout Catholic, because Christy’s game plan includes getting an abortion. To complicate matters, Christy herself is the result of an accidental pregnancy that Carole chose to not terminate over the objections of her impregnator-turned-reluctant-husband Jimmy, whose own dream of becoming a football player, along with Carole’s dream of becoming a nurse, was terminated by the pregnancy that wasn’t.

In addition to alienating her from Jimmy, Carole’s pregnancy led to a split between Carole and her father -- her mother already was dead. So Carole became close to her mother-in-law, Mary Louise, a strong advocate of the woman’s right to choose, who supported Carole over her son Jimmy during Carole’s pregnancy and is now supporting Christy over Carole during Christy’s pregnancy even though the first case led to a non-abortion and the second is leaning toward an abortion.

The book revolves around the interactions among the three generations of women and their different responses to Christy’s pregnancy and decision to have an abortion. To Carole especially, it awakens long-suppressed anger that stemmed from her own pregnancy in 1972. Hence the flashbacks.

A side issue but one almost equally perplexing to the avid Catholic Carole is the announcement by her sister Liz, a divorced mother of three teenage boys, that she finally has found true love to Barbara -- not, if you are confused, a man with a woman’s name.

The story begins during the Christmas season. In fact, it is Christy’s vomit attack in her parents’ bathroom Christmas morning that finally confirms Carole’s suspicion that Christy is pregnant.

The strength of this novel is less on the action than on the dialogue. Davis becomes every one of the women when they are speaking. She gets inside their heads and their hearts and enables them all to be sympathetic, believable characters. As a life-long feminist activist in abortion rights, there is no doubt where Davis stands on the issue of a woman’s right to choose. Nevertheless, she attempts to be fair with all of the women.

But she doesn’t confuse “fairness” with leaving the reader thinking that all positions are equal. Davis wrote Love Means Second Chances in order to be a voice for choice in the abortion debate. With confidence and no modesty, she admits that she wants her book to join the long list of those that have changed social conditions and perceptions, including Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Jungle, Invisible Man, and The Women’s Room.

So, in a cathartic scene, Liz asks Carole, “Will you love [Christy] less if she has an abortion?” Carole admits she hadn’t even considered that line of thought but, no, of course, she would not love her less. “The pain in her heart felt like it was being ripped out of her chest. Giving in, Carole sobbed uncontrollably, gasping for air as her worst fears dive-bombed her like demons.”

Davis chooses this moment to place the Catholic Church’s opposition to abortion into historical perspective when she speaks through Barbara, who tells Carole

Before 1869, the Church did not consider abortion a mortal sin. In fact, during the Middle Ages Thomas Aquinas wrote that abortions could be performed until the time of quickening -- when the baby begins to move in the fourth month. So it’s only been since the Church felt its power and influence were waning in the 19th century that it took a stand against abortion.

Going beyond Catholicism, Barbara continues

Abortion is as old as civilization. Women have been giving themselves abortions in every culture on every continent since the beginning of time... Abortion was the primary means of birth control in this country until it was outlawed in the 19th century. It was only after doctors began to specialize in gynecology and obstetrics and wanted to stop midwives from interfering with their business that it became illegal.

As a kicker she notes that Italy has the highest abortion rate of the European countries. “Those sisters are not afraid to take care of themselves if they don’t want to be pregnant.”

I can see the old men who head the Catholic Church hierarchy attacking the credibility of that entire scene. After all, who is it who is attacking Church doctrine? A lesbian! Whether intended or not, good for Davis for showing no fear here in mixing controversial issues.

But to her credit she never treats the abortion issue lightly. Davis agrees with anti-choicers who would argue that abortion can hurt women emotionally. A powerful scene takes place in Christy’s home when Carole comes over to talk after she has had time to cool off and reflect. As Christy prepares tea in the kitchen, Carole waits in the front room. They both pray to the same religious icon as they psych themselves up to represent different sides of the conversation:

Carole: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, help me... find the right words... to tell Christy that I love her, even though I don’t like what she’s doing.”

Christy: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, please don’t let Mom overpower me... Help me stay strong.”

Later, in the clinic after the abortion, Christy waits with other women who have undergone the same experience. There is not a whole lot of laughing. As each woman is discharged, the attendant says, “I don’t want to see you here again” (as opposed to what an anti-choice novel might have the attendant saying: “Shall we make an appointment for your next visit?”).

Six months later, seemingly a long time after the abortion, Christy experiences an emotional breakdown when singing an aria from Madame Butterfly where Cio-Cio San gives up her love child and kills herself.

The message from these scenes is clear. Not every pro-choicer uses abortion as birth control. It is a painful process even for women who choose to undergo it. These women actually experience real feelings of grief, anger, and sadness. No one is evil and no one “wins.”

Nevertheless, each woman has to make her own choice, for her own personal reasons, and deal with the resulting consequences, not have it mandated by the church or the state and deal with those resulting consequences, which, anti-choicers choose to ignore, also are painful.

I have to admit I’m happy that Davis confronts the Catholic Church directly. I don’t care what practicing Catholics do relative to their own abortions or non-abortions. I do care that Catholics and other religious anti-choicers think they can tell Jews what to do about ours.

In Arizona, for instance, Governor Jan Brewer recently put her signature on a “life begins at menstruation” bill. The joke by Yippie Abbie Hoffman was that “Jews don’t believe a fetus has life until it gets its graduate degree.” A funny joke perhaps but, in the abortion debate, when life begins is a non-issue for Jews.

Menstruation, you say? Fine if that gives you some perverted thrill. But don’t deny women from my religious family the right to control their own bodies, as our religion permits, just because your religion claims that ownership of your women’s bodies should be in the hands of old men who supposedly don’t have sex.

Catholic law as argued by the hierarchy and their followers is absolute on the issue of abortion: “We don’t give a damn what it does to the woman; all power to the fetus.” The position on abortion in Jewish law is nuanced but it ultimately comes down to “The mother’s life comes first.” Catholics call what they want to practice religious freedom but when they force their mythology and their dogma onto us it becomes religious imperialism.

So which is better, fetus-first Catholicism or mother-first Judaism? There obviously is no correct answer to please everyone, which is why the First Amendment right to freedom of religion is so important. But that right doesn’t apply only to Catholics. If Catholic law has a valid place in the debate about health care, so must other religions, and no religion’s dogma should be enshrined in federal or state law to the detriment of any other.

I look forward to reading my first Jewish pro-choice novel. Love Means Second Chances is a model of how that can be done.

[Ken Wachsberger is a long-time writer, editor, political activist, and member of the National Writers Union. He is the editor of the four-volume Voices from the Underground series.

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Marilyn Katz : Our Bodies, Their Politics

Image from The Raw Story.
Our bodies, their politics

The last few months have made abundantly clear what women must do: rid America’s capitols of misogynists.

By Marilyn Katz / The Rag Blog / April 24, 2012

In the first half of 2011, close to 1,000 measures related to reproductive health and rights were introduced into state legislatures.

The first “women’s group” that I was involved in was not born out of feminist theory or organized by intellectual women on campus. Rather it was in 1966 in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, and its members were poor African-American moms on welfare and thirtysomething (looking 50) Appalachian women, newly arrived from Kentucky and West Virginia.

Not much older than me, many of the women in the group provided physical testament to the possible effects of multiple childbirths while young and poor. The work of the group ranged from food co-ops to welfare reform, from rent strikes to learning to read.

The impetus for the group, however, was a clear-eyed view that welfare was a “women’s issue,” and the need -- among the Appalachian women in particular -- for protection and camaraderie in the face of their husbands’ explosive anger upon learning that “their” women were seeking information about birth control from government VISTA volunteers.

Back then the outraged cry from men was not about “religious freedom,” but about male prerogative and the duties of women.

I have been reminded of those meetings in recent months by the series of controversies surrounding the contraception mandate in the federal healthcare reform law -- from the exclusion of Sandra Fluke’s testimony at congressional hearings (GOP Rep. Joe Walsh said the birth control debate is “not about women”) to Rush Limbaugh’s virulent rant (and limp apology), to the barely audible denouncements of his statement by the Republican presidential candidates.

Contrary to the posturing of politicians and bishops alike, religious freedom is not the core issue. Consider, for example, the Catholic hospitals, schools and universities that have, for many years and with little fuss, provided insurance that covers birth control in the states that require them to do so.

The reality is, as it was 40 years ago in Uptown, that the debate about birth control is firstly and fundamentally about women -- their rights and their lives. From Biblical times on, women -- who bear the brunt as well as the joy of childbearing -- have struggled to curtail unwanted pregnancies, often resorting to extreme measures in the face of possible death or the poverty that another child might bring.

More than 500,000 women die around the world each year from pregnancy-related causes, according to the World Health Organization. A majority of those deaths occur in developing countries, but only a century ago American women faced similar fates.

It was not until the 20th century that pregnancy-related death rates in the United States declined -- a result of modern medicine, better sanitation and the advent of modern female contraception. According to a 2011 study, more than 99 percent of “sexually experienced” American women, including 98 percent of such Catholic women, use or have used non-natural (i.e., not abstinence or the “rhythm method”) birth control.

In the past year, as elected Tea Partiers have aligned themselves with religious fundamentalists, Republicans in the House have introduced eight anti-choice bills, each of which received the support of the same 225 GOP representatives. In the first half of 2011, close to 1,000 measures related to reproductive health and rights -- from those curtailing contraception to those mandating transvaginal ultrasounds -- were introduced into state legislatures.

Of the 28 states controlled by Republicans, 26 have passed laws that limit women’s reproductive choices. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 55 percent of American women of reproductive age lived in states characterized as “hostile” to abortion in 2011 -- up from 31 percent in 2000.

The danger is to women, but among us also lies the remedy. Perhaps we owe a debt of gratitude to the Limbaughs of the world -- they have brought to public view and hopefully to public attention the attack on women’s reproductive health and rights that has been steadily building over the past years.

And while it would be uplifting to get Limbaugh off the air, the real task is ridding our nation’s legislative bodies of misogynists. Women fought for and won a great deal in the last century. It’s time to say on the Web, in the streets, and of most importance and effect, in the ballot box: We’re not going back.

[An anti-war and civil rights organizer during the Vietnam War, Marilyn Katz helped organize security during the August 1968 protests at the Democratic National Convention. Katz has founded and led groups like the Chicago Women’s Union, Reproductive Rights National Network, and Chicago Women Organized for Reproductive Choice in the 1960s and 1970s, and Chicagoans Against War in Iraq in 2002. The founder and president of Chicago-based MK Communications, Katz can be contacted at mkatz@mkcpr.com. This article was also published at In These Times. Read more articles by Marilyn Katz on The Rag Blog.]

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Richard Raznikov : Vaginal Penetration in Virginia

The GOP’s uterus inspection device. Image from Little Green Footballs.
Vaginal penetration in Virginia:
Just lie back and enjoy it

By Richard Raznikov / The Rag Blog / February 22, 2012

Yes, I do appear to be outraged much of the time, but to paraphrase Robert F. Kennedy, there is much to be outraged about.

Today, it will be tough to beat the Virginia legislature, although I would very much like to, preferably with a baseball bat. The "conservative" Republicans who dominate it have finally exposed their innermost feelings. They want to get government off their backs -- and into women’s vaginas.

By an overwhelming number, and including women, they have passed legislation requiring any woman seeking an abortion to submit to an ultrasound procedure in which she is vaginally penetrated.

By a vote of 64-34, legislators rejected an amendment which would have given women the right to decline the procedure, or a doctor the right to decline to perform it.

The Governor, Bob McDonnell, who is hoping for a spot as Romney’s running mate, said that he will sign the bill.

I don’t know why we’re fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan when they're busy at work right here in this country.

Consider this comment from legislator C. Todd Gilbert: “In the vast majority of these cases, these (abortions) are matters of lifestyle convenience.”

Democrat David Englin, who opposed the bill, said a Republican lawmaker told him that women had “already made the decision to be vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant.”

In other words, once a woman has decided to have sexual intercourse in Virginia, she has consented to being raped by the state. Of course, once she has consented, it’s not actually rape. Maybe it’s a matter of "lifestyle convenience."

To be fair about it, there are at least a couple of Republicans who do not grope their aides, sexually harass constituents, or rape interns in the back seat of their taxpayer-paid automobiles out behind the local 7-Eleven -- these would be the Republican women.

Astonishingly, one Kathy J. Byron, a sponsor of the bill, actually said, “if we want to talk about invasiveness, there’s nothing more invasive than the procedure she’s about to have.”

Presumably, Byron sees little difference between one sort of penetration and another. Maybe she’d like to try that logic on her male colleagues who, once having had their prostates probed by their physician, may be said to have consented to being sodomized by the Governor.

Bet that video on YouTube would go viral in 50 seconds.

[Rag Blog contributor Richard Raznikov is an attorney practicing in San Rafael, California. He blogs at News from a Parallel World. Find more articles by Richard Raznikov on The Rag Blog.]

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Martha Kempner : The Patronizing Lectures of 'Private Practice' and Texas Law

The four central female characters of Private Practice: Addison, Naomi, Charlotte and Violet.
Private Practice and public law:

Reproductive rights, and the patronizing lectures that television depicts and Texas now requires.

By Martha Kempner / truthout / May 31, 2011

Last Friday afternoon, I watched an episode of Private Practice that had aired the week before and was not all that surprised when one of the story lines focused on abortion.

The show, which follows the lives of a group of doctors in Los Angeles, has dealt with the topic a number of times before. It is clear that the writers and producers don’t just support a woman’s right to choose but are willing to risk alienating some viewers in order to use the show as a platform to promote reproductive rights.

In fact, though I often find the writing predictable and overly melodramatic (the show is one of those guilty TV pleasures), I think the writers have done a great job with the abortion debate. They have given characters a chance to express both sides of the issue but in the end they always present well-reasoned, and even well-researched, arguments for why the right to “safe, legal abortions, without judgment” is so important.

Still, I was struck by one scene in this episode which reminded me of the mandatory “counseling” some states are now making women go through before they can exercise their legal right to terminate a pregnancy.

The episode, “God Bless the Child,” focused on the clashing views of two OB/GYNs, Dr. Addison Montgomery, who performs abortions (and has had one), and Dr. Naomi Bennett, who is opposed to abortion for religious reasons.

A patient, Patty, comes to Addison with uterine cramping and stomach pains about a month after having had an early abortion. It turns out the procedure was not done correctly and the woman is now 19 weeks pregnant.

Addison explains that she can still legally have an abortion but that at this stage of the pregnancy it is a more complicated procedure. Patty decides to do it, but Naomi approaches her in the waiting room and pretty blatantly tries to talk her out of terminating her pregnancy.

During the scene to which I am referring, Naomi is bouncing her one-year-old granddaughter on her knee. Patty explains that she is not ready to have a baby:

Naomi: No one is ever ready to have a baby. You just do it. My daughter was 16 when she got pregnant with Olivia here, she hadn’t even finished high school and I almost, no I tried, to force her to have an abortion and I’m so grateful that she didn’t. (She looks lovingly at the baby.)

Patty: She had you to help her. My boyfriend, Charlie, couldn’t get away fast enough.

Naomi: That just proves that he wasn’t ready to be a father.

Patty: I can’t be a mother. I have nothing. I have to work all the time.

Naomi: Being a mother isn’t about what you have. It’s about who you are.

So, basically, a wealthy, well-educated woman is trying to convince someone who has had to put off graduate school to work two jobs that being a mother will be fine despite her lack of resources. If that wasn’t bad enough, she moves on to some of the manipulative tactics common to crisis pregnancy centers.

Naomi: At 19 weeks do you know that your child can hear you? It can be startled by loud noises. Your child already has vocal chords, and finger prints, and air sacs in her lungs. She can move her arms and legs not unlike Olivia here. (She looks lovingly at the baby again.) I know you’re confused, which is why I think you need a little more time to think about it.

First of all, a 19-week-old fetus is nothing like a one-year old child. The comparison is unbelievably manipulative, as is having this conversation with a baby in the room to begin with.

Moreover, the character of Patty was not at all confused. She knew that she wanted to terminate her pregnancy. She had made a rational decision based on the circumstances of her life; she had determined that she did not have the emotional or financial resources she needed to carry the pregnancy to term or become a parent.

Suggesting she was confused just because she wasn’t making the same choice that Naomi would have made is patronizing, belittling, and insulting.

And yet, state lawmakers all over the country are doing the same thing when they impose 24-hour waiting periods, mandate ultrasounds, and require “counseling" sessions.

I don’t know if it was irony or coincidence (or totally unrelated) but while I was watching this scene and becoming infuriated -- the governor of Texas was signing a law that will force women in his state to sit through a similarly humiliating lecture before they will be able to have an abortion.

The new law, which goes into effect on September 1, says that at least 24 hours before an abortion is performed, a doctor must perform an ultrasound and then provide "in a manner understandable to a layperson, a verbal explanation of the results of the sonogram images, including a medical description of the dimensions of the embryo or fetus, the presence of cardiac activity, and the presence of external members and internal organs."

Exceptions are made for women who live more than 100 miles from an abortion provider (they only have to wait two hours between procedures) as well as for women who were raped and those who are carrying fetuses known to have “irreversible medical conditions that will cause a disability.” Most women in the state, however, will have to endure the sonogram and the lecture.

When pushing for such laws (Texas is not the first state to enact one), abortion foes argue that they are just enhancing informed consent, making sure women know what they are getting into, and protecting the life and health of the mother (and the fetus, of course).

It’s obvious to me that what they are really doing is trying to put as many roadblocks between women and legal abortions as they can while they work on other fronts to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the right to abortion altogether. What bothers me most about it, however, is how demeaning it is to women.

Most women who seek abortions are like Patty, they have made a well-informed, well-reasoned decision based on their own unique circumstances. Nonetheless, doctors are now forced to say, essentially: “Okay, but are you really sure? Before you really decide, look at this picture of your baby and listen to this description of her development. I know you think you want this, but why don’t you go home and sleep on it and come back tomorrow?”

These laws suggest -- not so subtly -- that women are not capable of making such decisions on their own. I can’t help wondering whether those who support these laws think women are capable of making any rational decisions. (And, on a slightly different note, whether anyone would ever impose a remotely similar restriction on men.)

In the end, the character of Naomi came through. When Patty affirmed her desire to go through with the procedure but admitted she was scared and lonely, Naomi came into the operating room and held her hand.

Somehow, I doubt the supporters of the Texas law will ever show women that much understanding or compassion.

[Martha Kempner is a writer, consultant, and sexual health expert. She has authored numerous publications for young people, parents, educators, and policymakers. This article was first published at RH Reality Check and was distributed by truthout.]

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