Blog for Choice Day 2010 (was 2 days ago)

Friday was NARAL's 5th annual Blog for Choice Day. I had every intention of dedicating a post on HWW to the event, which is held on January 22 to commemorate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (37th this year!).

Obviously, I am a slacker and no such post exists. In my defense, I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week, so you should all feel very sorry for me. I cried at work. Who cries at work?! I'm 25 years old, for Chrissake. A huge chunk of my pride is gone forever. Which will be followed by another huge chunk of my pride the next time it happens. And the next time, and so on. Lovely.

Anyway, the theme of this year's Blog for Choice Day was "Trust Women," which is an homage to the late Dr. Tiller who typically wore a button carrying the sentiment.

Before I get into a discussion of "Trusting Women", I wanted to talk about this theme in relation to a upcoming commercial. The commercial in question is Focus on the Family's pro-life/anti-choice ad, which is set to air during the Super Bowl. In a completely inexplicable move, CBS is allowing Focus on the Family to be the Super Bowl's first "issue ad" to ever appear. In the past, Moveon.org, PETA and the United Church of Christ have attempted to buy Super Bowl real estate, but CBS has turned down their requests, according to AlterNet.

Although representatives at CBS refused to talk to the Advocate (weird), spokesman Dana McClintock told the NY Times: “Our standards and practices continue to adhere to a policy that insures that all ads on all sides of an issue are appropriate for air.” I'll believe when I see it.

The 30-second, $2.8 million ad will feature the notoriously obnoxious--I mean, religious--University of Florida QB Tim Tebow, and his mommy, Pam. According to Wikipedia, Tebow's mother became seriously ill during her pregnancy and the medications used to save her life threatened the Tebow fetus. Doctor's recommended she terminate the pregnancy, anticipating a still-birth which could put Mama Tebow at serious risk. Obviously, the abortion did not occur, and the little Tebow grew up to be (against all the homeschooling odds) an NCAA football megastar.

The Tebow's will presumably relate this story during Focus on the Family's commercial.

So, ladies listen up! Please consider the odds of your fetus growing up to become a professional athlete (supposedly 1 in 22,000) before you terminate a pregnancy. I think that's what Focus on the Family is getting at. We'll see on February 7.

Now back to "Trust Women." Jos at Feministing writes:

Since Roe v. Wade became law 37 years ago abortion access has been under constant attack both from antis in the streets and legislation like the Hyde Amendment. Regardless of intent many of these actions send a clear message that women can't be trusted. Abortion, a medical procedure that is only needed by members of a marginalized population, has been singled out from all other procedures as something the state will not support financially and that often requires crossing medically unnecessary hurdles like waiting periods, parental consent, and harassment by antis. The implication is both that abortion should be controversial and taboo and that women can't be trusted to decide if they should have the procedure, even with the help of doctors and counselors.

"Trust Women" is a reminder that access to abortion shouldn't be limited because of politics or religious ideology. And it's a reminder that no one but the woman seeking an abortion is qualified to decide if it's the right decision. "Trust Women" means recognizing that each individual woman can make her own decisions about what is best for her.

Jos is pretty smart, and these things make sense to me. The logistical and financial hoops that women have to jump through in order to get an abortion are often excessive, and are put in place by people who out of touch with the reality of the situation.

"Trust Women" reminds us that the decision to terminate a pregnancy is not a simple one that a woman takes lightly. Young, middle-aged, single, married, whatever-- an unwanted pregnancy is a scary situation, and I think it's ignorant to assume that women carelessly choose to abort.

On the other hand, (yes, there is another hand) it takes two to tango, right? While I firmly believe that a woman should have the final decision in whether she wants to carry a pregnancy to term or not, should her opinion be the only one that matters? What about the father? Does he have no voice?

Sure, you're probably rolling your eyes right now. If you came to this blog on purpose (ha!), you probably know me and we're probably similar people: women, liberal, open-minded. But there's more to it than that. Honestly, I used to think that the man's opinion was irrelevant. Whoever he was, it didn't matter! It's not his body, it shouldn't be his choice.

But what sort of man-hating bullshit is that? Of course the father should get a say! There should always be a discussion. That's all I'm saying. If you can be an adult and have sex and get pregnant, then you can be an adult and talk about the consequences.

If nothing else, look at it like this: why should women carry the entire burden of deciding to have an abortion? It's not fair. Share the experience, share the emotional toll.

And that's all she wrote on Blog for Choice Day (two days late).

Women who've had 'accidents' are likely to have more 'accidents'

The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology published a rather interesting study in the November 2008 issue which was picked up by Reuters Health.

The study Is a previous unplanned pregnancy a risk factor for a subsequent unplanned pregnancy? concludes, yes it is. The full text is only available by subscription, but you can find a PDF of the summary here.

The researchers found that although education and age emerged as the two risk factors most likely to predict an initial unplanned pregnancy, the strongest factor for a second unplanned pregnancy was the mere occurrence of the first. Reuters explains,

Researchers found that of 542 women and teenage girls enrolled in a study to encourage contraceptive use, those with a history of unplanned pregnancy were twice as likely as other women to have another unplanned pregnancy over the next two years.

The study followed women and teenage girls ages14 to 35 for two years. Over that period, 23% of all the women experienced an unplanned pregnancy, more than one in five. Of the women who had experienced a previous unplanned pregnancy, 27% became pregnant again during the two year period versus 17% of the women became pregnant who had never experienced a unplanned pregnancy.

So what's the big deal? The study explains,

Women experiencing unintended pregnancies often do not initiate early prenatal care and are more likely to engage in unhealthy behavior, such as binge drinking, smoking, illicit drug use, and lack of vitamin intake, during their first trimester of pregnancy. Consequently, birth outcomes for unplanned pregnancies place the newborn at increased risk for premature birth, low birthweight, infant abuse, and neonatal death.

Which makes sense, right? If you're not expecting to be pregnant, why would you stop going out, doing body shots and smoking crack?
(Side note: The effects of prenatal cocaine exposure have been hotly debated in the last decade, and it's more or less understood that nicotine, alcohol and the poor health practices that often accompany maternal cocaine usage pose much greater threats to prenatal development than the actual crack itself. See this Systematic Review from 2001.)

The researchers suggest that the key to tackling the issue of repeat unplanned pregnancies is

Figuring out which women are at particularly high risk of unplanned pregnancies is key to preventing them, Kuroki's team writes. Based on the current findings, they say, asking a woman about her history of unplanned pregnancy is a good way to estimate her risk of one in the future -- and whether she needs more help with family planning.

Right, obviously. I wonder, though, who should be asking these questions? Is it the primary care physician? Planned Parenthood? Teachers? Friends? Family? Practically speaking, the study is vague, explaining only that

Efforts should focus on improving patient awareness of the associated risk factors, ensuring access to family planning services, promoting effective contraception use, and providing appropriate support and resources to women who experience an unintended pregnancy.

Ok then. It's somebody else's problem. I also wanted to highlight some of them more interesting statistics from the study:

• 49% of all US pregnancies are unintended (excluding miscarriages)
• 28% of women under 20 had an unplanned pregnancy, compared to 23% of women 20-24 and 12% of women over 24.
• 30% of African American women experienced an unplanned pregnancy, compared to 24% of Hispanic women and 17% of white women.
• 32% of women with less than a high school education experienced an unplanned pregnancy compared to 12% of women with a high school education or more.
  

I never would have guessed that the numbers would be so high. It would be interesting to look at the percentages over time to see if half of all pregnancies 50 years ago were unplanned... but I seriously doubt that data exists.

And speaking of unplanned pregnancies: Ashlee Simpson-Wentz gave birth to a baby boy today! Welcome, little Bronx Mowgli Wentz.

Wait, is that Mowgli as in The Jungle Book? Why, yes it is.