Tag Archives: pro-choice

Choice

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. It’s also National Blog for Choice Day

There are still folks and factions out there who want the government to dictate what a woman can do with her body. It’s not right. A woman’s body is hers and no entity or individual has the right to dictate what a person does with/to her own body.

Shame on Utah

As I listened to a presentation by Planned Parenthood of Utah yesterday on the timeline of sex education in our country, I couldn’t help but think how backwards we have been going since the late 1800’s when sex education first started being publicly developed. Although I knew about the “trigger law” that Utah was debating in the Legislature, little did I know that while I was seeing this presentation HB 235 was introduced by Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, I learned later in the day, in which Utah targets Roe v. Wade.

Margaret Sanger must be turning in her grave.

The legislators who want this bill to pass continue to lie to the public as well. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, Utah’s Senate Majority Leader,is quoted as saying that
“Planned Parenthood has made it clear that they will do all they can to continue killing babies … that’s what abortions do,” he said. “That’s one where it’s kind of black and white. There’s not a lot of negotiating if you take the life of a child.”

In Utah, Planned Parenthood does not perform abortions. PP educates women on their choices and their right to choose abortion.

I like how Karrie Galloway, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Utah, puts it:
“We are so focused on the abortion issue that we don’t look at how to prevent abortion, we only want to ban it and it hasn’t addressed the needs of the people of Utah.”

Welcome to the state of Utah – and our country – and a resurgence of the dark ages. Instead of fixing and preventing things, we do things like create bans and restrictions which are just bandaids to deeper problems that won’t go away.

Shame on Utah. A women’s body is sacred. A woman has the right to choose for herself what to do with her body. Once again, men are taking the moral high ground to decide for women what they can decide for themselves. You can believe what you want, but you don’t have the right to tell me what I can do with my body or anything that has to do with it.

Here is a challenge to Utah Women:
We need to introduce a bill whereby all men who have fathered two or more children must have vasectomies! And if they wouldn’t do this willingly, they would face forced castration. Population control at its best.

Planned Parenthood on the Pine Ridge Reservation

A friend of mine sent me this yesterday:

I just read about this in the American Progress Report. It seems the president of the Oglala Sioux tribe in Pine Ridge takes exception to the ban on abortion signed into law in South Dakota.

From Bitch, PhD.:

“Cecilia Fire Thunder, the President of the Oglala Sioux in South Dakota, speaks truth to the white boys who think they run things in her country.
“I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

Another blogger called Pine Ridge, spoke to Ms. Fire Thunder, and posts snail mail and email addresses where you can send checks and letters of support to help fund such a clinic. She also points out, correctly, that like most Indian Reservations, Pine Ridge is not flush for cash, so if you have a little extra, you might want to consider donating to the rez directly. Pine Ridge, by the way, is the location of one of only four Indian colleges in the U.S. that is accredited to issue its own bachelor’s degrees. Schools on Pine Ridge are in the bottom 10% of funding by the Dept. of Education and the BIA, teacher turnover there is eight times the national average, and the dropout rate is the highest in the nation, according to their education web site.

The mailing address is:

Oglala Sioux Tribe
ATTN: President Fire Thunder
P. O. Box 2070
Pine Ridge, SD 57770
or
ATTN: PRESIDENT FIRE THUNDER
PO BOX 990
Martin, SD 57751

For donations specifically for the Planned Parenthood clinic, make checks out to OST Planned Parenthood Cecelia Fire Thunder. General donations may be made out to the Oglala Sioux Tribe.”
————————————————————————————–
Let’s hear it for sovereignty, for a woman’s right to choose and for president Fire Thunder for having the ovaries to do this. I’m opening my check book right now. Please forward this far and wide.
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See also Sioux may challenge SD abortion ban – help open a clinic!

“The Dominoes Have Begun to Fall”

Those are the words of Planned Parenthood who has put out an alert that 11 more states are considering criminalizing abortion – even in cases of rape and incest.

The abortion ban signed in South Dakota last week was only the beginning. Eleven more states have proposed criminalizing abortion. The governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, recently said if an abortion ban reaches his desk, he will sign it. Act now to stop the dominoes from falling.

Planned Parenthood’s campaign is to stop this dominoe effect and also to reiterate that prevention is the key – not punishment.

Tell Gov. Barbour [and your governor] that Americans do not support any bans on the right to choose.

International Women’s Day in Salt Lake

Tonight in Salt Lake an event was held to celebrate International Women’s Day. Building Global Bridges was held at Westminster College. Tabling was for 1/2 hour prior to the film and panel.

Jen of Jen’s Green Journal has posted photos and an account of the event.

Here are photos from the tabling session:



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International Women’s Day

Today, March 8 marks International Women’s Day, the day of the Global Women’s Strike. IWD is a day that has been celebrated internationally by women and men and childrenm since 1945. (Scroll down for IWD history).

Locally, in Salt Lake City, there will be this event:

International Women’s Day – “Building Global Bridges”
Vieve Gore Concert Hall, Westminster College
FREE and open to the public
Reception: 6pm, Program: 6:45pm

Feature Film: “Women on the Frontlines” – Women in 5 countries strive to improve their lives and communities thorugh education, micro loans, democracy, and the search for peace and forgiveness. Discussion will follow.

Presented by:
Planned Parenthood, People for Peace and Justice of UTah, Mormons for Equality and Social Justice, National Council for Community and Justice, Tapestry Against Polygamy, Ten Thousand Villages, Westminster Students for Choice and Diversity Center, Rape REcovery Center, YWCA, SLC Film Center and City Weekly


Women at work in India
Ajit Solanki, Associated Press
Women break chili pepper stalks in Ahmadabad, India. The women earn 11 cents for more than 40 pounds of chilies. Today is International Women’s Day — an occasion where women’s groups worldwide are honoring women’s achievements and working for equality.
(published in today’s Deseret News)

  • END POVERTY AND WAR
  • AGAINST OUR PEOPLE AND OUR PLANET!
  • INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING!
    A network with national co-ordinations in 11 countries and participating organisations in over 60 countries. We demand the return of military budgets to the community, beginning with women the main carers of people and the planet. Women, and men who support our goals, take action together on 8 March, International Women’s Day, and throughout the year. In this way each grassroots struggle is backed by our collective power.

    Read these articles and accounts of women and women’s issues:

    Statement from Women <a href="Housewives workers in the home to President Chavez – 4 February 2006
    http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/English2005/WSFworkshops.htm”>Global Women’s Strike workshops at the World Social Forum, Caracas, Venezuela, Jan-Feb 2006
    Venezuela: bringing the women’s revolution to Europe & US
    Women under occupation – daily life and resistance: Three Palestinian women speak at Crossroads Women’s Centre
    Refusing to kill, a website by Payday, a network of men working with the Global Women’s Strike

    IWD History
    1908
    Thousands of workers in the New York needle trades (primarily women) demonstrated & began a strike for higher wages, a shorter workday and an end to child labor.

    More on IWD

  • Alito Nomination

    25 U.S. Senators stood up for a filibuster with a total of 42 U.S. Senators standing up against the Alito appointment in the final vote.

    Find out how U.S. Senators voted on Alito

    33 years of women’s constitutional rights being upheld

    Today marks the 33rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade

    In 1973, women won control of their reproductive rights when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that women have a right to choose as part of their constitutional right to privacy, to terminate a pregnancy during its first two trimesters. Only during the last trimester, when the fetus can survive outside the womb, would states be permitted to regulate abortion of a healthy pregnancy.

    The Supreme Court is just a step away of overturning this decision, however. Since Bush nominated conservative hardliner Judge Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, women’s rights are in jeopardy more than ever.
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