Charlotte Taft is the Director of the Abortion Care Network, an organization for independent providers and abortion care allies. In her long history with reproductive justice she has been a consultant and counselor with Imagine, and was the director of Routh St. Clinic in Dallas TX. She currently lives in NM with her partner.
Thoughts from the author written on the day Dr. George Tiller was shot are even more fitting today than ever.
The glee with which male politicians are willing to strip women of their most basic rights is staggering. And it is crushing to recognize that so many smart, caring women will spend their time, precious energy, and scarce resources begging men to please, please harm women just a little bit less.
After nearly 40 years working in the abortion field, I can see that the situation is hopeless. I admit it. Personhood begins at ejaculation!
I remember from my own clinic years that when a woman came to our front desk crying and shaking I always knew she had been waylaid by the Fake Clinic directly across the hall.
We who are pro-choice have got to change the rhetoric that surrounds issues of reproductive justice and legitimizes the intimidation, harassment, and even murder of providers. If we can do that we can help civilize the atmosphere of the country as a whole.
Right-wing, Republican and Tea-Party women are scary because they have not developed the courage and independence to step away from the protective shadow of power. What would it take for them to stand up for the rest of us?
The “Right to Lie” movement claims credit for shutting down a clinic that closed because the physician has cancer, while doing nothing to actually lessen the need for abortion.
More than 50 million women in this country have chosen legal abortion, with 50 million men involved. It is time we all came out of the closet to claim what we have known all along—we are good people making moral choices in difficult circumstances.
The HBO Documentary, 12th and Delaware, provides a rare glimpse of what women face every day in “crisis pregnancy clinics.” The filmmakers don’t propagandize or proselytize. They just show what really happens. Don’t miss it.
Why are Catholic hospitals allowed to treat Catholics and non-Catholics alike with flagrant disregard for the most basic of human rights, holding them hostage to the canons of a church even its own members don’t obey?
