as a new tactic, self-abortion taught

[niyad]

As New Tactic, Do-It-Yourself Abortions Taught
By GINA KOLATA
Published: October 23, 1989

Concerned that abortion rights may be curtailed by the courts or legislatures, scores of self-help groups around the country are teaching women how to perform abortions on themselves and each other.

Already, hundreds of women have given each other abortions or menstrual extractions in a revival of a technique that flourished in the late 1960's when abortions were illegal. Methods are being publicized in a videotape, articles, books, meetings and lectures.
. . . . .

Still, leaders of the self-help abortion movement say they want to insure that women can still obtain abortions if abortion rights are restricted. They also hope to influence the political debate over abortion, asserting that there is little point in imposing limits if women can ignore them and act on their own.

Above all else, they do not want to return to the days when abortions were all but unobtainable. ''We can never go back, never,'' said Lorraine Rothman, an Orange County, Calif., woman who is a leader in the self-help movement.

. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/23/us/as-new-tactic-do-it-yourself-abortions-taught.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

[niyad]

1. kick for friday crowd

[yardwork]

2. It makes me uneasy. People fought for the right to safe, legal abortions.

Why should women have to perform abortions on themselves? We have a legal right to abortions performed by medical professionals. Instead of retreating from that right, which is under attack, I think that we need to strongly defend it.

I understand the impulse to learn to do things for ourselves and not be dependent on others. However, nobody suggests that men should have to learn to do their own prostate surgery. Why should women be denied the right to access the highest quality medical care? That is a right that we must defend.

[niyad]

5. while I understand your reservations, look at the reality. women's rights, including the right to

safe and effective medical care (including abortion) is under attack in all 50 states and in congress. we cannot afford to just say "but it is legal". this has no use in a state that has ONE clinic--possibly hundreds of miles from where a woman lives, a woman who cannot afford to get to that clinic. we are facing a very real threat to our autonomy, to our very lives, and we have to have backup, if nothing else.

OF COURSE men don't have to learn to do their own surgery, because they are the ones in charge, voting on OUR lives, threatening OUR existence, not theirs.

it is easy to talk about defending our right to medical care, but take a look at what is going on right now, and tell me you don't think there is a problem.

and please note, that particular procedure has been around for quite a long time, and is in use all over the world.


when abortion is completely outlawed in THIS country, as every day shows us the woman-haters of the reichwing and repukes are trying, what do you think is going to happen? if one out of every five women can perform this procedure, do you think they can lock us all up? because, I guarantee you, if those woman-haters get their way, the burning times will have nothing on what they intend to do.

[yardwork]

7. Certainly there are two ways of looking at this. I believe that both points of view are valid.

I agree that women have the right to learn to care for themselves and others. I'm going to keep fighting to protect the right to obtain those services from medical professionals, too. We're both right.

[niyad]

10. no argument there. I am very cynical, however, and believe in being prepared for the worst.

at the rate things are going, we will be living in "the handmaid's tale" before the year is out.

[yardwork]

12. I worry about this, too. Things are very bad and going to get worse, imo.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

3. that's just sad & infuriating

[obamanut2012]

4. Horrible and upsetting

I also wonder if there are methods safer than those being taught? Midwives (and others) have been inducing abortions via miscarriages for a really long time.

[niyad]

6. there are herbal methods, as well, known to herbalists and midwives for centuries.

think about the attacks on herbal shops, the efforts to get herbal supplements declared drugs, and needing prescriptions for them. .

what happens to that availability, if big pharma and big brother have their way?

[obamanut2012]

8. That is exactly what I was thinking of

Midwives and "witches" and herb-induced miscarriages.

[yardwork]

9. Ergot.

[niyad]

11. amoung others

[justiceischeap]

13. You know, there's just something terribly upsetting about the entire concept

And that we have to have conversations about it in 2012 is that much more upsetting. I figured in my life, the abortion debate would be ongoing, not once did I ever thing we'd be battling our right to contraception. It all just makes me shake my head.

[MadrasT]

14. I know

I figured in my life, the abortion debate would be ongoing, not once did I ever thing we'd be battling our right to contraception.

I feel like I woke up in a messed up alternate universe.

[justiceischeap]

17. Hell, who knows, maybe we did

and tomorrow or sometime soon, we'll reawaken in the real world.

[OKNancy]

15. all this talk is super scary

I feel so bad for you young women. I hope we women who are past the time of worry for our own selves will do everything we can to stop this regressive trend we are seeing.

Yesterday my daughter and I were talking and I said... " god, I'm glad you are a lesbian"

[obamanut2012]

16. lol

[justiceischeap]

18. Now I have to wonder if more mother's are saying that

to their lesbian daughters. I'm glad you're saying it to yours.

[Kath1]

19. I agree that it is very scary

" god, I'm glad you are a lesbian" Beautiful. I got a tear in my eye reading that!

I really hate to be sayng this in 2012 but we have a lot of work to do.

[kdmorris]

20. That is just sad

Most of my life (at least for as long as I remember being alive), abortion has been legal. It really saddens me to see women forced to learn to do it themselves because of the fear that they will not be allowed to obtain it safely from a medical professional.

I am still trying to figure out what the fuck the Republicans are up to. They want to take away our ability to obtain birth control and our ability to do anything else about it if we do get pregnant. So...I know that they hate poor people, which is most often the position that women find themselves in after giving birth to a baby that they were not prepared for.

I just still don't get it.

[yardwork]

21. It's an effort by authoritarians to gain control.

Women can't be allowed to have access to contraception because then they can choose whether or not to have children, and women can't be allowed to make that choice. Only the handful of men who control our economy can be allowed to make those decisions, on behalf of everybody else.

Women can't be allowed to have access to abortion, even if means saving their lives, because then a woman can choose whether to live or die. Only a handful of men can make those decisions on behalf of women. Rick Santorum decided that it was ok for his wife to have a late-stage abortion to save her life.

The women's movement, the Civil Rights movement, the gay rights movement, all these expansions of rights are a terrible threat to the patriarchy. If other people have rights and choices, that means that the handful of men who think that they should decide everything lose power.

We're seeing the wealthy and powerful do everything they can to obtain absolute power.

[kdmorris]

22. That's all I'm left with too

I keep thinking that everyone will see what they are doing and vote them out... but it doesn't seem to happen. Each election, we seem to have less and less choices.

[niyad]

23. that pretty much covers it, except for one small detail--they absolutely HATE women