Sen Kit Bond doesn't care about rape victims

The note below is the letter I sent to Sen Kit Bond today in response to his "no" vote on the Franken Amendment.

First, watch the Daily Show segment calling out those who voted against Franken's amendment to protect rape victims:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rape-Nuts
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Feel free to copy & paste what you want -- or write your own letter -- and send to your own Senator if they were one of the 30 male Republican senators who voted against S.Amdt. 2588. (Find your Senator's vote here.)


I cannot WAIT to replace this man with Robin Carnahan.


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Senator Bond:

I'm writing to express my extreme disappointment with your vote two weeks ago on Senator Franken's amendment (S Amdt 2588) to the Defense Appropriations Bill (HR 3326). You, along with 29 of your male Republican colleagues, voted against his non-controversial amendment to protect rape victims. His amendment will deny the granting of federal funds to contractors that prohibit their employees from pursuing their full due process rights for certain crimes.
Your "nay" vote on this amendment protects these companies, putting their financial needs above the needs and rights of their employees. It troubles me that one of my Senators, elected to represent me and the people of my state, would prioritize corporations over rape victims.


There are a lot of things I do not understand about your vote, and I am genuinely curious to hear the reasons behind the decision to vote against this amendment.

I heard one of your colleagues argue on the floor that this bill targets Halliburton, and is a political move against one corporation. This amendment, though it does mention Halliburton by name, does not limit its scope to one corporation. Any company found to be participating in these practices would be denied federal funds.
The denial of federal funds due to unethical practices is nothing new. You voted "yes" to Amdt 2355 to HR 3288, prohibiting federal funds from going to ACORN. This adds a particularly troubling aspect to your vote: You are willing to deny ACORN funds based on the unethical actions of some of its employees. You are not willing to deny Halliburton or KBR or other similar companies funds based on the unethical official company policy.


The fact that it seems as though you are willing to side with large corporations over rape victims scares me. Last year in Missouri, one rape was committed every 5.5 hours (this number does not count any unreported or statutory rapes, or rape committed against male victims).* It concerns me that a representative of a state with such a serious problem with rape would not take the needs of rape victims seriously.


Sincerely,
Jen L.
Kansas City, MO

*MO's 2008 crime statistics on rape can be found here: http://www.mshp.dps.mo.gov/MSHPWeb/SAC/pdf/2008CrimeInMO.pdf

How To Write About Abortion Providers

There's been a lot of linking among my pro-choice friends to the article that ran in Esquire last week. The Last Abortion Doctor has made its rounds to pretty much every major feminist blog: Shakesville, feministing, Feministe, and I'm sure plenty of others. None really commented specifically on the article; their posts just sent readers in the direction of Richardson's craptastic article.
Yes, craptastic.
I don't know if I'm in the minority in thinking it was so awful. Lots of people commenting on these posts loved it. I know, though, that I wasn't the only one who really hated the way that John H. Richardson wrote about Dr. Warren Hern.





Dr. Hern is an abortion provider in Boulder, CO. He is one of very few doctors in the US that will perform late abortions, usually defined as after the 22nd or 24th week.
Dr. Hern is a wonderful doctor, and I'm more grateful than I can express that he's continuing to do his work after losing his friend and colleague, Dr. Tiller, to the same threats that he receives daily.

John Richardson, however, is a terrible writer and ruined what could have been a great profile article of the personal side of an abortion provider and the life he must lead just to be safe. Not only is the article riddled with inaccuracies, he insists on calling Dr. Hern "the abortionist," a vilifying term coined by the anti-choicers...and one that Dr. Hern explicitly requested he not use.

So, the subject? Fantastic. The actual article? Piece of crap.

(At least one blogger agrees, and wrote a great piece about all the reasons John Richardson's article was terrible: see Ema's post at The Well Timed Period.)





Today, I found another profile of another abortion provider who is now performing more late abortions. This time, it was written by a journalist who actually knows how to write without ruining really fantastic subject matter.
Newsweek created a video a couple weeks ago:

And Newsweek published an article yesterday, The Abortion Evangelist: Why LeRoy Carhart Won't Stop Doing Abortions.
Sarah Kliff, who has covered abortion-related issues for Newsweek for at least a couple years, did a fantastic job with the article. She spent time with Dr. Carhart, got to know him, and told his story. She turned him into a person, and crafted a simultaneously emotive and informative profile of Dr. Carhart. She understood abortion politics, did not refer to him as "an abortionist," and, well, acted like a professional journalist.

This is how you write a personal profile of a doctor who provides abortions.
This is a good article.

And when you want to write more of your own personal narrative in a journalistic context? You do what Sarah Kliff did, and write a separate piece about your experience in watching an abortion procedure. Read that one, too: Watching My First Abortion - Competing Emotions

That (not really so) elusive "common ground"

Five years ago, I would've scoffed at the idea of finding "common ground" with anti-choicers. I couldn't have imagined that I would ever be able to sit at the same table with them, let alone have a constructive conversation about "common ground" with someone who opposed abortion.
To be fair to my younger self, I hadn't really met any reasonable, rational pro-lifers -- I'd only met radical anti-choicers who thought I was a babykiller. I had one friend who opposed abortion, and we'd had some discussions about it, but for the most part, we skirted the issue.

Five years ago, I wouldn't have thought that I'd be actively working to find common ground with pro-lifers. I'd only ever seen them as my uncompromising opposition...and I certainly wasn't about to compromise, either.



With the course my life has taken, though, I've softened my view of (most) pro-lifers substantially. I loathe those who advocate violence, subtly or overtly, and I still can't stand to be in the presence of those who consider me and my co-workers babykillers because of the organization we work for. But in working in South Dakota during the past two election cycles, in moving to the middle of the country, I've realized that the anti-choicers I knew weren't representative of the majority of the "Other Side." I do think that most pro-lifers are reasonable people who I can agree with on some issues around sex, education, and prevention.


Take, for example, the numbers.
Here in Missouri, 86% of the state's citizens support comprehensive sex education, not proven-ineffective abstinence-only education.
65% believe pharmacies should be required to dispense over-the-counter and prescription contraception to patients without discrimination or delay.
And almost 60% would rather see our state legislators focusing on real solutions -- i.e. preventing unintended pregnancies -- rather than adding on to our already enormous list of restrictions on abortion.

Missouri, a state represented in the state legislature by a majority of anti-choice Republicans, is actually pretty full of relatively reasonable people.
Going out to gather petition signatures from Missourians to support prevention policies (access to birth control, comprehensive sex education, access to STD treatments), most people agree. I've had reasonable conversations with people who oppose abortion...but end up signing our petition anyway, because they agree with me on the need to emphasize prevention policies.




Turns out, common ground among real people (politicians don't usually count in the "real people" category) does exist.

So when I see something like this, a Democratic US Congressman ousted from the advisory board of Democrats for Life because he supports contraception, it makes me worry for the future of this whole push to find "common ground."


The woman I talked to while gathering petition signatures, a member of Feminists For Life, is never going to agree with me on abortion. I don't kid myself about that. I can tell her everything I believe, she'll respond with everything she believes, and neither of us is going to convince the other to change our convictions.
But she wasn't unreasonable. We could talk about contraception, about emergency contraception/Plan B, about sex education, about real solutions to preventing unintended pregnancies, and...we could agree. (Of course, FFL refuses to take a stance supporting or not supporting contraception because it's somehow "beyond their mission," but I have yet to meet a FFL member who disagrees with the availability of contraception.)


Real people, it seems, are on board with common sense prevention policies.
I don't expect pro-life Missourians to all suddenly change their beliefs and become pro-choice. (I'd welcome it, of course, but I don't expect it.)
This common ground, this place where we can agree on how to prevent unintended pregnancies...it does exist. It's not a mythical place of rainbows and unicorns. Really. It's there.
We just need the bureaucratic organizations that are stuck in the ideological pits of everything they're against to lift their heads a little, look up just a little beyond the hole they've dug, and come along with the rest of us.




(h/t for DFL article to feministing.)
((further reading on common ground that's insightful and real and honest can be found at RH Reality Check.))

welcome to kansas city, the midwestern leg of your trip.

i've been neglecting this little blog lately. oops.
things have been a little crazy, what with moving halfway across the country and all.

in fact, we almost didn't make it here at all. we came thisclose to death on I-90, just beyond the NY-PA border. we spun out, and ended up facing oncoming traffic. well past sundown. in what should've been travel-ban-worthy snowy weather. H, my invaluable travel buddy, claims we only spun around one and a half times (that's 540 degrees, if you're counting). i maintain that it had to have been way more than that. as the driver, i think that my version of the story trumps hers. in any case, it was absolutely terrifying.
makes me regret never doing donuts in safely abandoned parking lots when i was younger...
we miraculously didn't hit anything and got out of it alive...then crawled with the rest of the traffic over 2 miles of black ice to the next exit, where we slid into the first hotel and downed a shot of tequila each at the pub next door. (i should probably clarify: H downed a shot of tequila. i downed maybe a half shot, after dribbling the other half on the bar. i blame my lack of coordination on nervous energy from the spinout.)

if we'd taken our intended route - through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois - we probably would have died. luckily, the inordinate amount of money i paid for a moving company also afforded me an absolutely wonderful moving truck driver who told us terrifying tales of the awful conditions of I-70 (his route and our intended interstate). John, our driver, strongly advised us to take a different route.

never one to doubt a trucker, reroute we did. and so two massachusetts homos in a little blue car with a rainbow sticker on the back window drove, instead, through west virginia, rural kentucky, rural indiana, and rural illinois.
luckily, we both pass. H as a midwestern suburban mom, me as just plain het. we only got a few dirty looks from drivers with Jesus-fish on their back bumpers. not bad, given our route. and we only went about 300 miles out of our way. small price to pay for not spinning out off of a cliff en route, i suppose.



once we got to KC, we quickly found a really great local coffee shop (The Roasterie - not entirely fair trade/organic, but they've got some, and they're very invested in the local community, and they air roast their own beans). i still love dean's beans the best, and H sends me care packages consisting solely of their coffee. but it's good to have a local alternative.



before she left on a jet plane, H also introduced me to a friend of hers here in KC, who just added two super cute 8(?)month old babies to his family. twins - one boy & one girl. i've babysat for them once so far. i miss my babysittees in northampton, but these adorable babies are helping to ease the pain quite nicely.




i've been here for four weeks so far. i'm more homesick than i ever thought possible, but i love my job just as much as i thought i would. not quite a balance that i've struck yet, but it's on its way.
in the four weeks i've been here, i've learned more than my brain has the capacity to hold. the organization i work for bases their (successful) organizing strategy & tactics on the Midwest Academy's style of organizing. my new Bible is their activist manual. it lives on my bedside table. yes, i read it before going to sleep.

i've also learned an awful lot about Missouri politics.
like, for example: