Back Up Your Birth Control Day blogging

I'm blogging this as part of the Day of Action around the Back Up Your Birth Control Campaign.

I’ve had various moments in my life where I could have used e.c. (emergency contraception), but a few are more crystal-clear than others. There was a time in early 2006 when I thought it was on the market without a prescription and it turns out it wasn’t, which was not a fun little while. Then later that year, with a man who was kindof a mirror image of the first one, I also needed it again, because I’d again had unprotected sex.

I thought that I was past that, that I had moved on to a more responsible, early-thirties, sexually active person, so the last time I needed e.c. was really the most wrenching for me, something I think about a lot as I contemplate possibly being (hetero)sexually active again (which is a story for another time, but suffice it to say, whether that’s in November or earlier, I don’t want to make the same mistake). At the time, I was on and then off birth control. I was using the NuvaRing, and when I had the money ($50, with insurance), I would buy it, but otherwise, I would just use condoms.

But then I started seeing someone where we weren’t using condoms, and while I was using the ring, it was fine. There was a while where I wasn’t, though, and I was pretty sure, in my head, that I was ready for that. I told him I wasn’t using anything and we couldn’t have intercourse and yet that’s precisely what we wound up doing and for the longest time I felt so stupid about that. I still do, to a large degree, and am so grateful that I was able to get e.c. Now, I was waiting for a check at the time, as I often am, and waiting out the time between when that payment arrived, and when I could get the pills, was excruciating. It was also a very lonely time because I couldn’t turn to the person involved, and I felt like if I told my friends about it they would just tell me I was stupid for having done that in the first place.

I didn’t quite realize that, well, life happens. That a lot of women, smart, strong, powerful, amazing women, some of them my friends, find themselves in similar situations. I wish my friends had had e.c. handy, or handier, than they did. I don’t say that because I think abortion is morally wrong; I am completely pro-choice. I say that because even from my limited perspective, that was not a choice they wanted to make. I’m not going to speak for anyone else but seeing up close how challenging an unwanted pregnancy was for at least one friend, I wish all of us who either suspect or are sure we’ve had unprotected sex that might lead to pregnancy could easily assuage those worries.

Yet even as I’m participating in the blog carnival, I can tell you that after that incident, though it changed how I thought about my own sexuality, changed how I thought about who I wanted to sleep with, changed how I looked at my own sense of agency and responsibility (and made me 100% convinced that I, as a woman, owe it to myself to never, ever rely on anyone else to possess that responsibility for me), it did not mean that I walked around, or am walking around now, with e.c. on me. I guess I figure that if I do need it, I will go down the block to the drugstore and get it. Maybe there is a teensy tiny part of me that thinks that if I have it handy I’ll be more sloppy with my birth control, if and when I do need it, because of that safety net. But this year I am all about working on myself and not “fixing” old errors, but learning from them. That made a huge impression on me because it showed me that I am not always as responsible as I'd like to be, whether regarding my sexual choices or my financial ones, and that as someone who does, in fact, want to be a parent one day, that is not the kind of behavior I want to model, and not the kind of person I want to be. (Please note: I am not saying there is a "kind of person" who doesn't use birth control or forgets to use it, but that in this specific incident, I actively went against my own self-interest and that certainly made me question why I'd be willing to do that.)

That was a turning point for me because I realized some of the falsities I was telling myself about myself and my own responsibility and autonomy when it comes to this issue. I thought that I had everything so neatly under control and to realize that I didn’t, that I was willing to risk something so huge, for something so momentary, threw me in a major way. It made me realize that I need to pick who I share my body with a lot more carefully, and that I can only do that with people who I can also share everything else with—my mind, my fears, my mistakes. I couldn’t do that in that situation, and yes, I am getting to what this has to do with emergency contraception, and that was what really did a number on me.

So, in conclusion, I fully support more awareness around emergency contraception. I think so many of us are too hard on ourselves too much of the time, to the point that we are self-defeating. Having e.c. on hand just in case, for you, or for a friend, is not a sign that you are planning to have unprotected sex, and even if you are, or think you might wind up in a circumstance where you might, it is worth the peace of mind.

And if we are talking about emergency contraception as a health care issue, I can tell you that those days I was waiting to get that direct deposit were some of the most stressful of my life. There is no way they were anything approaching “healthy” and I am naturally prone to worrying so that certainly exacerbated it. If you are going to use e.c., while it is effective for up to 120 hours (5 days), it’s best taken as soon as possible.

According to Planned Parenthood:

Emergency contraception can be started up to 120 hours — five days — after unprotected intercourse. The sooner it is started, the better it works.

Emergency contraception is also known as the morning-after pill, emergency birth control, backup birth control, and by the brand names Plan B One-Step, ella, and Next Choice. Plan B One-Step and Next Choice reduce the risk of pregnancy by 89 percent when started within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse. They continue to reduce the risk of pregnancy up to 120 hours after unprotected intercourse, but they are less effective as time passes.

For more information about emergency contraception and the morning-after pill, visit:

womenshealth.gov

Planned Parenthood

I Stand with Planned Parenthood Blog Carnival Friday, February 25th

I'm participating in the I Stand with Planned Parenthood Blog Carnival on Friday, how about you? For more information on Planned Parenthood, visit their website and sign this petition. You can donate here.



I'll be writing something new for Friday, about my own encounters with Planned Parenthood, pregnancy scares and Plan B, as well as about the wanted and unwanted pregnancies of people I've been close with, but for now, a blast from the past.

Five years ago I wrote a Village Voice column called "I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck," which read in part:

One needn't look far to confirm Page's argument that sexual freedom and reproductive rights are intimately entwined. In the eyes of the pro-life movement women are designed for making babies, and men's pesky sex drives are something to be suffered or used to procreate. According to culturejamforlife.com, "Abortion enables the woman to become a reusable sex object without any idea of fidelity, and it gets the father out of having to pay for child support." Someone recently posted to a Pro-Life America website, "There is no such thing as an accidental pregnancy. Pregnancy is the outcome of sex and is the sole purpose of sex. Sex is not a game and is not for pleasure only. If it were . . . then pregnancy would not be an outcome." Even the group Feminists for Life (feministsforlife .com) points to women as the kinder, gentler, less horny gender: "No one can deny that women have always had a higher biological investment in sexual union; abortion seeks to undo that tie. Is the ideal a world wherein sex can be (and often will be) commitment-free?" While Page's title is deliberately provocative, wading into the minds of those who consider women baby-making vessels is more disturbing. To hear them tell it, we're off having careless sex 24-7, then blithely aborting. Anyone who's sweated out a pregnancy test knows nothing could be farther from the truth. Says Page, "There's a pro-life war against Americans' sex lives and the pro-choice movement is a relief agency. We're the levee that keeps this wave of fundamentalism from washing over the American public."

Abortion, "choice," women and responsibility

I have a lot of thoughts about this topic swirling around in my head, at the forefront because on Saturday I’m doing something I’ve never done before: accompanying a friend as picking up a friend after she gets an abortion (apparently I'm not allowed to go inside with her). When I was younger, I was super paranoid, constantly thinking I was pregnant even when I’d used a condom, even when I’d had my period. As I got older, I got slightly less careful, and I think the lesson I’ve learned most fiercely is that just as what to do with our bodies once we get pregnant is our choice, so is what we do before that point our responsibility. In part because men cannot know exactly what it is like to worry about being pregnant, to suffer the effects of birth control gone awry, or what the cost of that worry is.

Which brings me back to my friend, and makes me angry to the point of hysteria at the psychotic “baby killer” people. I just can't listen to that. It’s not my place to share her story other than to say that she does not in any sense of the word “want” to have an abortion. It is not a happy situation. It’s a tough and challenging and difficult and lonely one, as far as I can tell, and I can only be a friend and offer as much comfort as I can and say that I wish she were in a position to not have to do this, but she's not.

But it brought back to me both the primacy of women having the right to control our bodies and also the farce behind the idea of “choice,” so binary, so simple, yet this is not a simple decision for I would imagine many women. Certainly not for my friend. Yes, she had to make a choice, but it was not one where she could simply tally up the pros and cons. Similarly, I made a lot of choices that weekend—the lending of the money, the unprotected sex—that put me in a really bad situation. And it would be very tempting to try to pass off both of those onto the other people involved, but that is wrong. I chose both actions, and cannot say I was coerced in any way. I have rehashed and admonished myself about them plenty, so I’ll move on to say that I learned two major actions I don’t intend to repeat in the future. I don’t lend money, and am grateful no one’s asked because I also lent money to a friend close to that time and it caused (momentary) rifts in our relationship. And I do my best to make sure I have my birth control under control.

I realized when all that drama went down, when I was both emotionally miserable and not loving the aftereffects of Plan B, that I was acting like a child, like the girl who at 18 and 21 thought she was pregnant when there was pretty much no chance of that, but in the opposite way. I’d replaced her hypervigilance and neuroticism with a devil-may-care attitude hardly befitting someone my age.

And I realized that I need to surround myself with people who will help me be that mature person I want to be, not the childish one who lurks in me on even my best days. I don’t want to be coddled or not be forced to reckon with my actions, but I want to be with someone who I can actually talk to about Hard Topics, who will recognize both that my body is mine and mine alone to make decisions about how to use it, yet who wants to help me make the most informed decisions I can. For various reasons, that was not the relationship and would never be, with that person in that random city, and that’s okay. I am grateful for that rocky week because it taught me the value of money, of mistakes, of balancing living in the moment with actually living.

For the record, I’m not trying to give men a pass on taking responsibility for their actions either. But ultimately, I can’t really waste my time worrying about what the fuck men think about what I do with my body, even men who are my lovers. That might sound harsh and I’m not saying I’d make a decision as profound as what to do about a pregnancy without informing and discussing it with the other person but that at the end of the day, really, they are not the ones dealing with the day-to-day reality. Certainly not in my friend’s case, but even if he were, no matter how “supportive” a man may want to be, he is not the one going through those changes. That was a good lesson for me to learn, and I don’t think it made me more cynical, just more of a realist, and hopefully, a more responsible person who takes better care of myself, to everyone around me’s benefit.

Planned Parenthood gets donations in Palin's name

More Palin coverage on my Tumblr.

Love it! from Rocky Mountain News:

Planned Parenthood is suddenly a lot richer because of Sarah Palin.

And the Republican vice presidential nominee will soon be receiving tens of thousands of thank-you notes.

A three-week-old Internet campaign is asking abortion-rights activists to send donations to Planned Parenthood in honor of the Alaska governor.

The origin of the campaign is unknown and Planned Parenthood officials insist it is not their doing.

Palin is a staunch abortion- rights opponent. The campaign is meant to translate anger at her position into money for an agency that provides sex education, women's health care and abortion services.

One e-mail making the rounds on the Internet says: "Instead of (actually, in addition to) all of us all sending more e-mails about how absolutely horrible she is, let's all make a donation to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin's name."

Katie Groke Ellis, field manager for the Planned Parenthood of the Rockies Action Fund, predicts that the five-state chapter of the group alone could draw $100,000 in donations.

"We are so excited to see that people are writing checks to us instead of just complaining about it," Ellis said Tuesday.

See also:

Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Planned Parenthood of NYC

Feminist film screening and fundraiser Wednesday 5/23

Women's Liberation Birth Control Project

Fundraiser and Feminist Film Screening - Pls Forward Widely!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007 at 8pm
Monkey Town (bar, restaurant, and art space)
58 N 3rd St (btw. Kent & Wythe) Williamsburg, Brooklyn
L to Bedford
Admission: $5
There is $10 drink or food minimum for the art space.

As part of our efforts to raise consciousness and gain momentum in the movement for reproductive freedom, we will screen the 1972 film It Happens to Us, which shows women testifying about their abortions, both legal and illegal, followed by video clips of today's feminist movement in action.

Although progress has been made, reproductive rights are constantly under siege. In mid-April, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to uphold a Federal Abortion Ban that restricts a safe and commonly used abortion procedure. With the right wing chipping away at Roe v. Wade, it is imperative that women respond. Come to this great event to learn about how we won abortion rights in the past and how we can continue the fight today.

Proceeds will benefit The Women's Liberation Birth Control Project.

Make a reservation: www.monkeytownhq.com

Find out more about us: http://www.birthcontrolproject.org

Pill Patrol

Babeland blogged about Planned Parenthood's new Pill Patrol campaign. See below and sign up:

Every day in America, women are forced to play the lottery when they walk into their neighborhood pharmacies and ask for Plan B emergency contraception (EC). Planned Parenthood is launching a nationwide campaign to protect women’s health by ensuring that EC is available in every neighborhood in America. We need your help! Sign up to survey a store in your neighborhood now.

Stop whatever you're doing and read this

Andrea Lynch provides a highly relevant, frightening look at Eric Keroack, Deputy Asstant Secretary for Population Affairs with the Department of Health and Human Services. Her post could've just been the 68 slide PowerPoint presentation that presents umpteen assumptions about the horrors of casual sex, posits that we're just like mice, and is just painfully childish with its incessant use of exclamation points, capital letters, and happy faces (I direct you to slide 50 which advises you to:

PROTECT YOUR "BONDING" !!!
AVOID CASUAL SEX III

Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Be Terrified that Dr. Eric Keroack is in Charge of the U.S. Federal Family Planning Program

Lynch also links to some other relevant articles and posts but really, if all you do is lok at the slideshow, that'll be enough. Except it's not funny and this is our own government we're talking about. Welcome to America, 2007, where we're encouraged to be abstinent until age 29, despite the fact we're almost all doing it. Again, there's a fundamental assumption that sex itself is the enemy, not the warped way we're taught to view it through very gendered lenses, nor the warped ways we're taught to define sex, and ourselves in relation to it.

Blog for Choice Day

(ren



I’m pro-choice because, at 31, I hope to be a mom sometime in the next few years, and I want my child(ren) to be welcomed into this world with 100% love and affection. I want to become a mom when I want to and because I actively chose motherhood. I’m pro-choice because in the last year I’ve had more pregnancy scares than anyone should, and having the option of Plan B helped lessen my worry. I’m pro-choice because I love children, and women, and don’t think the former should ever be forced on the latter. I’m pro-choice because I believe in allowing women to control our own bodies and in taking that responsibility seriously. I’m pro-choice because I don’t want to go back to a time when women had little control over our own reproduction, when sex was so fraught with fear that heterosexual (and bisexual) women couldn’t truly enjoy and engage in it without undue stress. I’m pro-choice because even though some types of sex can result in babies, children shouldn’t be an unwanted consequence. I’m pro-choice because I believe in sexual freedom and that said freedom can coincide with parenting by choice as well.

As I wrote last year in my column, “I’m Pro-Choice and I Fuck:”

I'm pro-choice because I couldn't fully enjoy sex were I consumed with worry about the potential consequences. I'm pro-choice for all my friends who've had abortions and gone on to do great things, who are better women for being childless (for now). I'm pro-choice for the new moms and dads I know who were able to actively choose to become parents. I'm pro-choice for all those babies, like my new cousin Adam, born knowing they're 100 percent loved and wanted.

See also: Jessica Valenti's "A Roe Resolution: Trust Women" at the Huffington Post

Monday is Blog for Choice Day

This weekend I'm going to be working on a fairly long post about choice and sex and protection and babies to run on Monday. So much to say, hopefully I'll be able to make sense of it. I'm still really proud of last year's "I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck" column, but there's also a lot more to "choice" for me than that and it gets complicated. Since last year, I've had to deal with issues of unprotected sex and been in situations I never thought I'd find myself in and hopefully I've emerged the wiser for it. So basically I'm still totally pro-choice, but I also have a google news alert on "babies" - that's how bad the baby fever is. I try to chill out about it but my body is very insistent that I get knocked up ASAP. Don't worry, I have no plans to just yet. But there's a big part of me that's ready. More on this TK when I've had some proper amount of sleep.

Am I allowed to vomit if I don't have morning sickness?

I cannot even really express in words how grotesque I find the idea of being simply against contraception. Nevermind the idea, the act. That is just one of the most flawed, ridiculous, dangerous, outrageous and simply stupid things I've ever heard.

The good new sis that I found this blog today: http://www.ourbodiesourblog.org

The bad news is that I found one who's very name repulses me: http://noroomforcontraception.com/cgi-bin/cblog/

I also found news of a contraceptive pill for men that's in the works (thanks, prolifeblogs.com!)

Here's what prolifeblogs.com had to say about the development:

As with other contraceptives, this pill will to allow men to treat women as sex objects.

Whatever the form, regardless of who takes/uses it and when it is used, contraception harms the family, marriage, society, and the health of men and women.

My birth-control-taking heathen self really can't top that so I will leave you on that note. Well, one more thing: I used to be pretty easygoing on the semantics stuff. Like, okay, pro-choice, pro-life, blah blah. But I feel like the anti-abortion crowd has not only hijacked being pro "life" (which is kindof like these I Heart Female Orgasm t-shirts I'm highlighting in my sexy gift guide - who isn't pro life and who doesn't heart female orgasms?), but "pro baby." And fuck that. I cannot let that go. I am so pro baby I practically fall on the ground in front of them. That is really only a slight exaggeration. I am baby mad, as many of my friends know. I am writing more about this for another venue so will elaborate in a more eloquent way there but for now, I think the above speaks for itself. Birth control = downfall of society. Gotcha.

Birth Control Rally on Sunday

Although before we're asking for all this other stuff (which I think is important too, hence this post), could we get freaking Plan B into drugstores? Like it's great in theory, but not so helpful if it's not actually available.

From Morning After Pill Conspiracy

*Rally for Birth Control*

Sat., Nov 4th, 1pm, Union Square, Southside on Steps

Join the Morning-After Pill Conspiracy Coalition to protest the Bush Administration's anti-birth control agenda. Rally will include a speak-out, street theater & free condoms. Bring your friends- anyone who cares about women's reproductive freedom.

Feminist organizing broke through the FDA's three year stall on the Morning-After Pill… but we have more to fight for. The FDA imposed an age restriction of 18 and up and is forcing the pill "behind-the-counter" where pharmacists will control it. The White House's anti-birth control agenda continues to dictate the FDA's decisions.

If we want to move forward again, it's time for us to fight like we mean it, fight for what we stand for- NO government interference and restrictions on birth control and abortion. These are attacks on a woman's right to control our bodies and our lives. Feminists can't wait any longer- let's build on this initial victory on the Morning-After Pill and take it all the way!

* NO Age Limit on the Morning-After Pill
* NO Carding for Birth Control
* Plan B should be available at corner stores and gas stations
* All pharmacists must do their jobs and dispense birth control to women
* Repeal restrictions on abortion

Details:

Saturday, November 4th at 1pm
Union Square, Southside Steps. 14th Street between Broadway & University Place.
Take the 4, 5, 6, L, N, Q, R, or W to 14th Street/Union Square.

For More Info: www.mapconspiracy.org, birthcontrolproject@gmail.com, 917-842-5306. Please email us or give us a call if you would like to help organize for the action.

Background Info:

The Morning-After Pill Conspiracy is a coalition of feminist organizations leading the grassroots movement for full over-the-counter access to the Morning-After Pill. Our name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that under the prescription requirement, Plan B is so hard to get that women have to conspire just to gain access— saving up prescriptions and sharing them with friends. Our campaign uses speak-outs and civil disobedience to highlight the injustice of the prescription requirement and to show that women are the real experts on why we need unrestricted access. New York based groups in the coalition include the Women's Liberation Birth Control Project and Redstockings Allies & Veterans.

Nicholas Kristof on the need for over-the-counter emergency contraception

Nicholas Kristof really slams the Bush Administration's inane policy keeping emergency contraception by-prescription-only. Echoing what Cristina Page wrote in How The Pro-Choice Movement Saved America, about how the lack of easily available emergency contraception ultimately leads to more abortions. He also looks at how other countries have dealt with e.c., highlighting just how behind the United States is. And he coins a fabulous new word: "libidophobes" - how perfect!

"Beyond Chastity Belts," Nicholas D. Kristof

But unless the libidophobes in the administration mandate chastity belts, their opposition to Plan B amounts to a pro-abortion policy...

France has made a particular push for emergency contraception to lower its abortion rate by making free morning-after pills available to French teenagers, without informing the parents. Nurses in French junior high and high schools are authorized to hand out emergency contraception pills...

One thought that paralyzes the Bush administration is that American teenage girls might get easy access to emergency contraception and turn into shameless hussies. But contraception generally doesn't cause sex, any more than umbrellas cause rain...

The administration's philosophy seems to be that the best way to discourage risky behavior is to take away the safety net. Hmmm. I suppose that if we replaced air bags with sharpened spikes on dashboards, people might drive more carefully — but it still doesn't seem like a great idea.

Strut Your Choice

I guess choice is going sexy these days . . .

WHO: The Young Professionals Council for Choice of NARAL Pro-Choice New York hold the second annual STRUT YOUR CHOICE.

WHAT: STRUT YOUR CHOICE is a fashion event and fundraiser to benefit reproductive health and a woman’s right to choose. This event brings together over 500 New York young professionals with cocktails, fashion and food. It will educate and provide a vital message: Roe v. Wade must be protected. A runway show will feature the support of designers Ed Hardy, Christian Audigier, Basil Max, Eve Lynn, Haverhill Leach, Jacqueline Toboroff, Momimomi and Umsteigen. Tickets are available online at https://id297.securedata.net/prochoiceny/s03getinvolved/ticketorder.shtml and are priced at $85, $120 and $150.

WHERE: AER Lounge, 409 West 13th Street (at 9th Avenue).

WHEN: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 from 7:30 – 10 pm.

WHY: A woman’s right to choose has never been more endangered. Abortion is now illegal in South Dakota and politicians throughout the country are looking to pass similar laws. In response, hundreds of young professionals in New York City have left behind their apathy and are mobilizing to protect their right to decide these most fundamental issues.

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Bernstein, SparkPlug Communications, 212-967-1251, gabrielle@sparklugpr.com.

Letter to the Voice about my pro-choice column

Village Voice letters to the editor, January 31st, Issue 05 (there's also a one pro, one against Tristan's "Tool of the Patriarchy" column - and speaking of Tristan, her new porn flick Tristan Taormino's House of Ass, a reality-TV parody starring Joanna Angel, is coming out February 24th and she's having a big release party on February 26th!)

Vagina monologue

Rachel Kramer Bussel's "I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck" [Lusty Lady, January 18–24] expresses everything I've felt for years. I can accept nothing less than complete reproductive and sexual autonomy. Bussel delineates all the issues involved: sexual liberation, the choice to bear a wanted child, and the true agenda of so-called pro-lifers (I prefer to call them anti-choice) to curtail birth control and sexual expressiveness. The adherents of the Christian right conservative coalition have stymied any attempt to pass laws that would encourage the nurturance of the lives of the children they claim to protect.

Terry Graham
Buffalo, New York

How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America

In my "I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck" column, I interviewed Cristina Page, author of How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and The War on Sex and I just found out (thanks to my google news alert) that she has a website, prochoicemovement.com and a blog. I like how Cristina describes herself:

Gushing mother, loving wife, devoted daughter, trusted colleague, native New Yorker, first-time author, freedom lover.

She's doing some readings (Feb. 9 at McNally Robinson, Feb. 16 at Bluestockings and March 28 at Brooklyn Public Library) and I found interesting blurb from Ariel Levy, bolding mine:

From the very first sentence of her book, it’s clear that Cristina Page is looking for common ground—profound understanding—between those frightened to interrupt biology in motion and those determined to control their own destiny. Page understands that to be alive is to be sexual, and she brings to this discussion something much more interesting than violent rhetoric\: insight informed by genuine compassion.

—Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs

"I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck"

Reposting for anyone who hasn't read it, since today is the 33rd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. "I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck," Lusty Lady column, The Village Voice

If you're a (hetero)sexually active woman capable of getting pregnant, your freedom is in danger. Access to abortion and birth control is increasingly under fire from conservatives who think all sex should result in pregnancy. Go beyond the bloody-fetus placards and you'll see the religious right isn't out to simply reverse Roe v. Wade, but to combat birth control and promiscuity while they're at it. Keep reading

Latest Lusty Lady column, "I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck"

Lusty Lady, "I'm Pro-Choice and I Fuck"
The intimate link between reproductive and sexual freedom