Carole Joffe is a professor at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. NOTE: The views and opinions of the participant expressed here on this site do not necessarily state or reflect those of the Regents of the University of California, UCSF, UCSF Medical Center.
To me, the most interesting question posed by the brazen contempt for women contained in H.R.358, is whether the antiabortion movement has finally gone too far.
The death of Robin Rothrock, who ran an abortion clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana for many years, is a huge loss, not only, obviously, to her family and close friends, but also to the close-knit community of abortion providers who cherished her.
The refusal of Senate Republicans, nearly all of whom identify as “pro-life,” to support the 9/11 First Responders bill gives the question of what it means to be “pro-life” new urgency.
Rachel Maddow does more than any other contemporary media figure to address abortion. But her otherwise excellent special on Dr. Tiller left out what actually occurred inside that clinic.
For the women of Arkansas, the death from leukemia of Dr. William Harrison means they have lost a compassionate physician, legendary for his kindness.
A bill passed this spring in Nebraska, the Orwellian-named “Women’s Health Protection Act,” does nothing to protect women’s health, but instead flouts medical practice and standards of care to achieve an anti-choice end.
One year after Dr. Tiller’s murder, a network has been created to expand availability of later abortions, and disseminate accurate information on this topic to both clinicians and prospective patients.
In some extremist anti-choice circles, full-throated woman-hating never went away. But among other “mainstream” anti-choice groups, latent mysogyny is now out in the open.
The abortion wars rage relentlessly on, in the United States and elsewhere, and the only lesson to be drawn from recent federal and state legislative action is that the wars show no signs of abating.
The term “choice” has had many critics from within the movement often referred to as “pro-choice.” The selection of the word is understandable but perhaps inadequate to convey what is needed.
