It is time to go to the mat to preserve women's right to reproductive self-determination

Gloria Feldt has a passionate plea at Salon to stop assuaging our outrage at the murder of Dr. George Tiller with candlelight vigils:

I am done with candlelight vigils.

It is good and necessary that people gather together at a candlelight vigil to honor the memory of Dr. George Tiller, murdered in cold blood today at his Lutheran church by an assailant believed to be Montana “Freeman” Scott Roeder. Tiller was a compassionate and courageous doctor who provided abortion services to women in some of the most distressing circumstances imaginable, when their pregnancies had gone horribly, tragically wrong. He provided services when no one else would, and he was stubborn enough to fight against everyone who tried to stop him. So it is right that people express their grief in public ceremonies.

But I myself am done with candlelight vigils. I have participated in too many of them, from 1993 with the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola through the seven doctors, patient escorts and staff murdered over the horrifying five-year period thereafter. I can never forget the day before New Year's Eve in 1994. I was, at the time, CEO of Planned Parenthood in Arizona, talking on the phone to Pensacola patient escort June Barrett -- who had been wounded when her husband and the clinic’s Dr. John Britton were murdered by anti-abortion zealot Rev. Paul Hill -- when I received another urgent call from a friend whose granddaughter worked in Planned Parenthood’s Brookline clinic. The young woman had just witnessed the murder of two co-workers by John Salvi.

Each time, we held vigils all over the country. We wept and we pledged to continue our work. Which we did, increasingly, in isolation. We were the ones who had been wronged, and yet we were labeled controversial, to be shunned rather than supported. The murders were only the tip of the iceberg, among over 6000 cases of violence, vandalism, stalking, bombings, arson, invasions and other serious harassment. 

[snip]

When it comes to decrying Tiller’s unspeakable murder, I want to hear it from Congress. I want to hear it from clergy, the medical profession, the media and civic leaders: "This kind of violation will not be tolerated. Period." I want to see leaders and people at the grassroots joining hands together in support of those who provide women with reproductive health services, including abortion. I want them to put the yellow armband on, to assume Tiller’s name as so many took on the Obama’s middle name, Hussein, when he was disparaged during the election. Doctors have a special responsibility. David Toub M.D, MBA, who provided abortions when he was a practicing physician in Philadelphia, told me, "This could have been any of us who provide or provided abortion services. I'm just as annoyed by some of my own colleagues and the American Medical Association who marginalized us and even looked down at anyone involved in providing abortion."

The silence overall from leaders so far has been deafening, as attorney and longtime Arizona volunteer for reproductive rights causes Leon Silver pointed out. And if our leaders remain silent, I can tell you with perfect assurance what will happen next. There will be more violence.

For the last twenty years, we've watched as those in a position to make policy began to get "squishy" on abortion rights. We've watched our party become increasingly willing to throw women's rights to control our own bodies under the bus in an effort to include those whose stated concern for "THE BAYBEEEEZZZZZ" is belied by their own behavior. Yes, there are people of good conscience who oppose abortion but support efforts to support women making the decision not to abort -- including financial ones.

But for the most part (including the troll who commented on an earlier post here yesterday), scratch the surface of a fetophile and you'll find a misogynist -- someone who feels that the dirty sluts who can't keep their legs closed deserve to be punished. When you look at who it is who kills these doctors, it's the very same teabaggers who have been praised by right-wing television and radio hosts as American patriots. It is not considered patriotic on the right to murder those providing health care services to women.

There have always been abortions. There will always be abortions. Most of us who believe that there should be NO point in a woman's life in which she ceases to be a human being and becomes nothing but a vessel for a fetus have never had an abortion. I have never had an abortion. I wanted to make sure that this choice I support wholeheartedly is one I never had to make. I was both responsible and lucky -- responsible because I was dogged about contraceptive use, and lucky because in my case, the method I chose, which statistically has a higher failure rate than others, never failed.

"I don't like the idea of abortion used as birth control," we hear people say. Yes, there are women who have repeated abortions. But anyone who thinks that abortion is something that women choose blithely is clearly a) not a woman; or b) has never had a cold speculum shoved into him/her. I had a punch biopsy once, and that was quite enough pulling stuff out of my nether quarters, thank you very much. The very notion that there are millions of women in this country who decide to have a late-term abortino to fit into a prom dress, or who decide that it's such a nice day, let's go get our nails done, have a nice lunch, and then get an abortion, is preposterous on the face of it.

So why do we give these people any credence at all?

It's time to start digging beneath the surface of these people and reveal them for the frightened little weasels that they are. Women have sex. Women enjoy sex. This is a GOOD thing. Once we accept that, then we can open the door to teaching girls about the conscientious use of contraception without the added baggage of having to be "swept away" so that having sex doesn'tmake her a slut. If we want to reduce the incidence of abortion, we need to be teaching women not the madonna/whore dichotomy, but how to make affirmative decisions as to what is right for them at the appropriate times of life. An empowered, confident woman is one who makes smart choices. An empowered, confident woman won't feel unable to insist on condom use. An empowered, confident woman also has better ability to protect herself from disease.

We also need to make contraception more available, especially to low-income women, and not just send them home with pills or devices, but also teach them how to say yes -- or no -- and listen to their own hearts and minds instead of messages from men or churches or even traditions that are no longer relevant to life today. Over the last few decades, contraceptive choices have become fewer rather than more. Try getting a diaphragm these days without having to wait a week for the local Rite-Aid to get the damn thing.

And it's time to stop being squishy about this. I'm not happy about President Obama's statement yesterday, though I realize that it's about as good as we're going to get from him. But the issue isn't simply one of deploring the violence directed against abortion providers. It's time to stop demonizing women who choose abortions and the doctors who perform them. If you want to stop abortions, then support efforts to make contraception universally available, effective, and affordable, and support efforts to help women make independent sexual decisions for themselves. But those who paint their anti-abortion rhetoric with undertones of fear and loathing of women and our sexuality can just shut the fuck up. We don't want to hear you anymore. Guys like Scott Roeder have taken away any credibility you ever had.