Women...I just want you to remember...

[MichiganVote]

You've been sleeping. Its time to wake up. Your daughters will need your history. The following article provides a synopsis...

Read me...wake up...wake up...wake up

http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2004/04/26abortion.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. my mother had a Mexican abortion in 1961. she was newly divorced

already had me to care for, had lost a second child to RH factors and had just been diagnosed with Manic Depression (bi-polar).

She almost died from toxaemia (def: The condition of general poisoning caused by the entrance of soluble bacterial toxins into the blood.) thanks to the lack of hygiene in the Mexican back alley "clinic"

I never had to have an abortion, but my mother needed one in 1961 and almost paid the ultimate cost for it.

Young women, don't let our fight for your rights be overturned.

[MichiganVote]

2. Exactly. The Repub. pseudo women want us to feel ashamed

of the tremendous fight women led for our rights. The right wing is working to bring back the shame of being female, of being needy or hurt or homeless.

Talk! Tell our history to your daughters! Don't let them disguise their "concern for morality" hide the plain fact that we will ALL slide economically and socially once this foothold is mad.

Wake up women! Tell the history of suffrage, of liberation, of the thousands and thousands of your mothers who stood for you.

Stand for your daughters. Stand!

[NMDemDist2]

3. I'm gonna tell a little more of my personal story because this is such

an important issue.

the reason I never needed an abortion is because of the fear of pregnancy (thanks to almost losing my mother) I got a Dalkon Shield and it caused me to lose my reproductive capability.

Thankfully my current husband doesn't/didn't want children but my first husband felt differently......

If you young women don't know what that's all about, Google is your friend.

[MichiganVote]

4. AZ...you are a miracle. Thank you...and now I'm going to preach

Young women,

You may believe that the politics of America are about wars. It's true. You have a war and you are in it whether you like it or not.

But there are wars within wars in this country today and you are part of them whether you have had an abortion or not, whether you support abortion rights or not and whether you can or cannot have children or even want them.

Abortion rights are not about your mistakes or the mistakes of others. Abortion rights are not about men. Abortion rights ARE about you, your future, your life.

Know this: There are females in this country who think that life for you is all about a man, a credit card, a house in suburbia, an SUV and a church on Sunday. There are women in this country who only think of sisterhood as the denomination of a religious calling. They have entered a permanent coma about the common needs and rights that women need to function and flourish in our society.

You and I are a sisterhood. The religious right has had decades to peddle their idea of morality about abortion. You have heard years of propaganda speeches about the "shame" of abortion. They would have you believe that you are a better person in their eyes without abortion rights. NOT SO!

Women, tell the truth to stop the right wing lies. Tell the young women of today what they and their sisters really have to look forward to if Roe v. Wade is gone.

Wake up women...the religious right and the media have drowned out our history. Talk, tell the history of women before Roe v. Wade.

Look around you...in the 60's and 70's the men marched right along with the women. Today? They have left the ranks...and they won't come back without you.

Talk...Tell...

[Warpy]

5. I never had an abortion, but a pregnancy would have threatened

my life. Kidney transplants weren't available during my prime childbearing years. If they had been, I'd probably be on my second one right now, if the first had lasted the maximum time. The nuns would say I've committed the sin of having an abortion by intention. You bet I have, Sisters. Now you know why I left your church.

I lost a friend to a septic abortion in the late 60s. She would never tell us whether she'd tried to do it herself or found a butcher to do it for her. It was a very hard way to die. It was a hard death to watch, especially knowing that safe procedures were possible and available in civilized countries.

For all the men who read this forum and dismiss us as one-issue voters, I can only say that if slavery were applied to males as the antiabortion crowd wants it applied to us, then slavery would be your paramount issue with all others secondary, too.

Those of us who survived those pre-Roe years will never vote for an antichoice candidate, and we don't care how much unions like him.

The party can't win without its women. If it goes antichoice, we will leave it. That's how vital the issue is to us.

[MichiganVote]

6. I'm sorry about your friend Warpy...

The thing is, Democrats are fond of talking about values when it comes to the homeless, those without food, education in America. But they have sold the women in this country a bad bill of goods when it comes to reproductive rights.

Women need and deserve reproductive rights. Without them we will always be second class citizens. I am sick and tired of listening to sactimonious "religious" women standing behind podiums talking shit about the morals of other women. Who asked them?

I want the women of America to start talking back to these holier than thou's who haven't a shred of decency about judging others when they're damn religious dictates tell them, 'judge not lest ye' be judged'.

Keep talking women. Keep telling America's little secrets about how the men in our society witheld medical care from women, imprisoned them, and did everything but stone them as they still do in uncivilized countries. Keep talking back to the spineless females who don a mantle of purity that reeks of money and priviledge.

Talk...tell...don't let them take our history away from us.

[MichiganVote]

7. Feminist legislators working for women

http://www.now.org/issues/election/elections2004/041112winners.html

[MichiganVote]

8. Sources for your support

http://www.wrrap.org/

http://www.naral.org/

http://www.crlp.org/pub_fac_wrrip.html

http://www.ipas.org/english/default.asp

http://www.nwlc.org/display.cfm?section=reproductive%20rights%3A%20general%20materials

http://www.muslimtents.com/sistersinislam/publications/health.htm

http://www.abortionaccess.org/

http://www.newr.bham.ac.uk/topics/Reproductive/reproductive_newr.htm

http://www.feminist.org/rrights/internatl.html

[Lars39]

9. These are wonderful links!

I'm afraid there's going to be some very ignorant kids as regards to contraception and basic reproduction facts due to the "abstinence only" kind of sex ed.
Do you know of a very good straight forward site that we could steer kids to for the info they need so badly?

[MichiganVote]

10. The two best sex ed resources are

knowlegable, caring and forthright parents and your family physician.

Read this article for guidance.


http://www.fcs.uga.edu/pubs/current/CHFD-E-42.html

[MountainLaurel]

11. Relevant op-ed

in today's Washington Post from a high schooler in the county where there's been the uproar about the sex ed program because it teaches that you shouldn't hate gay people. :eyes:

I remember how I felt two years ago, in the spring semester of my sophomore year at Sherwood High School in Montgomery County, anticipating the unit we were about to study in health class. So far, we had learned about pedestrian safety and how to act in an emergency. But now we were getting to the good stuff -- sex education. I couldn't wait.

I'm not sexually active, nor have I ever been, but sex ed has always been interesting to me, as it is to my friends and other students I know. Perhaps that's because, despite all the TV programs, movies and jokes about sex, it's still considered a taboo subject. Yet it's hyped up to be this best-feeling-you'll-ever-have act. So why wouldn't teenagers want to learn about it, or maybe even try it? Let's face it: As premature and saddening as teenage sex might be, teenagers do still "do it."

That's why we need sex ed. I've thought about this a lot lately as a sex-ed controversy played out here in Montgomery County, where some parents succeeded in blocking a new curriculum that included a video using a cucumber to demonstrate how to put on a condom, as well as discussion of homosexuality and bisexuality. The parents argued that the course was promoting homosexuality and promiscuity, but to me it just seemed that the county school system was recognizing that more in-depth instruction on sex will make students better prepared for the world we will face as adults.

snip

Sex education is especially valuable for kids who don't have a good family situation or who don't have an outlet for asking questions. In the past couple of years, I've been approached by two girls who asked me where they could get birth control that didn't require their parents' consent. They were scared of their parents and clearly didn't feel comfortable talking to them about their decision to become sexually active or about birth control.

I have a very open relationship with my own parents. They taught me from a young age how a baby is made, and my mom always reminded me that if I needed to talk, she would make no judgments. That makes me feel secure; I know that if I found myself in an uncomfortable situation, I could ask my parents for help or advice. Unfortunately, many families don't have that same receptive line of communication when it comes to sex. It's almost as if some parents believe that if they don't inform their children about sex, then the kids won't do it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/04/AR2005060400128.html

[Kerrytravelers]

12. From the mouth of babes...

This is so right on target. It's as if some parent's live in a mystical bubble and never want the pin prick of reality to burst what they have created.

[MichiganVote]

13. Some lessons before Roe v. Wade

http://www.agi-usa.org/pubs/ib_5-03.html