A Library of Sorts

What we have in common is that we all see women’s health as a political issue, not just a personal one. Many of our health problems are caused by the unequal distribution of resources, labor, and power resulting from discrimination based on sex, race, class, sexual orientation and dis/ability level. (Examples range from the obvious — the baby who was premature because her mother was malnourished — to the more subtle stress of being closeted to keep a job.)

The medical treatment that we receive for our health problems is also affected by these same inequalities and politics. (Witness the woman trying to get decent treatment for a vaginal infection without telling her doctor she’s a lesbian, or the woman who can’t even get in to see the doctor because she lacks health insurance.)

We would like to provide a space for women to share our experiences of the current health care system, and our successes and failures in self-help health care, as well as our political analyses of what’s wrong with this medical system, and what we can do to change it.

Just wondering why more tumblr radfems aren’t in the WDI breakout rooms? They’re so much fun and a lot of organising goes on in there

They’re for women only, you have to have your camera on at all times to make sure there’s no TIMs trying to sneak in

Yesterday I was there until 2am I’m so tired lol. Apparently their record is 6am!

btw the name for the film room is wrong. There’s 3 films every Saturday. On the last Saturday of the month it’s Lesbian Film night

also forgot to mention that sometimes some big names are in there. Dr. Emma Hilton from Sex Matters is frequently in there for example

Matrix by Lauren Groff is another good novel, about a group of medieval nuns who isolate themselves from the outside world and create their own society — that one may be more up your alley. In terms of nonfiction, I liked Womanspirit Rising (edited by Carol Christ and Judith Plaskow), which is about feminist approaches to Christianity and Judaism. On Being a Jewish Feminist is collection of essays from diverse perspectives on reconciling womanhood and feminism with Jewish identity and/or practice. That one is edited by Susannah Heschel. I was able to get all of these from my public library! :)

feminist speculative fiction is a genre that i wish had thousands more books <3

Some things to read, watch or listen to, and then ponder.

A sonata composed by Marguerite Canal [video].

A spring-relevant list [tips].

Fight Back!, an anthology of female resistance (x) [pdf].

At the very least you need to let go of the idea of men (x) [essay].

A Defense of Abortion, by Judith Jarvis Thomson (x) [essay].

https://digitaldefensefund.org/ddf-guides/abortion-privacy/

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How your phone documents your abortion experience and what to do about it! By: the Digital Defense Fund

Risk: receipt for payment for your abortion and/or travel in your inbox Alternative: Make an email account just for this purpose, then delete it after

Risk: period tracking app shares your data Alternative: Use a privacy-driven period tracker like Euki App

Risk: search history saved in your phone’s browser, and with your ISP (internet service provider) Alternatives:  - Use a privacy-driven search engine, ex: DuckDuckGo - Install a paid VPN to hide websites you visit from your ISP - Browse with Tor or Firefox  - Use a private browsing window, or delete your browser history

Risk: payment history for your abortion in a banking or payments app Alternative: use cash or pre-paid gift cards where possible

Risk: ad tracking & location tracking from apps, browser history, & social media activity Alternative: in your phone settings turn off location tracking & mobile ad ID

Risk: sensitive text messages about your abortion experience are kept forever Alternative: use an encrypted chat app, ex: Signal or Wire, with disappearing messages turned on (important!)

Use the medications properly to prevent interactions with healthcare providers. The pills are very effective, but they have to be used right. Carefully follow the instructions provided on the How to Use Abortion Pill website. Note that misoprostol tablets should always be taken by dissolving them under the tongue. Do NOT insert misoprostol vaginally if you are self-managing an abortion. While this is medically safe, it can leave incriminating pill remnants that can be detected in the vagina during a pelvic exam if you end up needing to seek medical care. 

If it’s not an emergency but you need expert health advice, use a free calling service like Google Voice to call or text the Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline at 1-833-246-2632. Medical complications are very uncommon with abortion pills, but they’re not impossible. The M+A Hotline is safe to use and is staffed by trustworthy clinicians who volunteer their time to help those who choose SMA. Do not use your own phone number to call as this will create a record that is visible to your cell service provider. 

Don’t disclose any information about SMA to emergency room staff if you do need to seek medical care. This is how most people who are arrested for SMA are reported. Healthcare providers are almost always who calls the police in cases of SMA criminalization. Contrary to popular belief, HIPAA does not protect your private health information from being shared with police if you are suspected of doing something that could be considered a crime. If you believe you need to seek urgent medical care, do not hesitate to go. Say “I think I’m having a miscarriage” and provide your symptoms. Do not mention any use of or purchase of abortion pills. There is no widely available test to detect misoprostol in your bloodstream. If you do not disclose it, there is no way for a medical provider to tell the difference between a medication abortion and a spontaneous miscarriage.

For instance, I explained to this person that the body autonomy comes before other’s right to life, like if someone right now was dying and needs your blood, or your liver, nobody can force open you up and take whatever they need, because your rights over your own body precede other’s right to life, and they just dismissed it with “it shouldn’t be looked at that way.” I tried to explain the disastrous consequences of not giving rights to abortion to young girls and women who have high rates of dying in childbirth and during pregnancy, they dismissed it with “all of our lives are nearing to an end anyway” basically saying, so what, kill them, they would have eventually died anyway (that is murder rhetoric), I tried to advocate with women who are impregnated by force and raped, they decided to pretend this isn’t an issue, and told me women are created to give birth, when I argued it is not that we’re created to do it, but we have the means and the power to do it, and it’s on us to use it the way we want to, they said “no, women don’t have that right.”

And that one really hit me, women don’t have that right? Because if women did have that right, that would be rather terrifying, wouldn’t it? Because women are the only people on this planet who have the power to give birth, to create life, in that sense we all exactly like gods, able to bestow life when we decide we want to, when we deem it’s what we want. That’s what they’re trying to take away from us here. They want their god to be the one to decide who we give life to, and when and why and in what situation, they don’t want our free will to affect us being child-bearing machines of the world. But there is no god above women. There is no authority of life above women. We are the highest and final authority on life on earth. Once this has reached our collective minds, they are in big trouble. That’s why they fight so hard to prove that we are just incubators, not beings of free will, because once a human has a way to create life, and a free will to decide weather to do it or not, that individual becomes a god. That’s what we were all along. Source of all human life on earth.

Whichever man acts upon a woman’s body and decides that his action has created life, that is who is supposed to get the final say, the person who claims to be the creator of that life, gets to stamp his last name on the baby and get legal rights, etc. But zooming out to think about the implications of the role of religion here, it is clear that men are constantly trying to steal the role of life-creator from women and divest women of that power using religion. Like… Claiming that the creator of everything is male despite all evidence otherwise, the whole “men are made in his image and women are afterthoughts” thing, demonizing female goddesses and the female role of reproduction, claiming that women’s sex drive doesn’t exist and/or should never be acted upon, “virgin birth” as a concept, women as mere vessels, patrilineal family lines… I could go on. The ways this is painted into religion makes it clear that so much of it is just one big cope, a collective delusion for men to tell themselves that they are mostly or even solely responsible for life on this planet. So the restriction of abortion, and further, the psychological aspect of fucking with women’s minds, purposefully depriving us of the knowledge that we hold the actual power over creation, convincing us that it’s not actually up to us… It is just a natural next step when you are on a millennia-spanning campaign to claim this power for yourself.

On a related note, it’s funny how men, finding themselves in many cases unable to literally take away that power of life without working against their own interests, have managed to turn all of our gifts into curses, as if to punish us. Menstruation, which is a useful thing, is turned into a disgusting taboo. Our breasts are turned into sex organs only and are considered obscene in order to distract from their actual function. We have the ability to become pregnant any time of year, unlike many mammals, and this is used against us as well by turning “any time” into “any time a man wants it regardless of your opinion”.

1. Anticipating a 200+% increase in patients, how much funding has been set aside for medical professionals who want to train in abortion care? Are nurses and physicians assistants going to be able to administer abortions as well? (Maryland’s governor just vetoed a bill that would have set aside 3.5 million) Do you have any new reproductive scholarships or student loan repayment programs for these providers?

2. Are you following Washington’s lead with passing a preemptive bill that outlaws any vigilante style-bans like the ones passed in Texas and Oklahoma?

3. Will you join Oregon in setting aside $15 million to buy abortion equipment and fund training to expand the workforce? If not, will you at least follow their lead of setting up a state wide hotline for abortion access and funding?

4. What steps are being taken to follow in the footsteps of California and Connecticut, where abortion providers are protected from lawsuits filed in states where abortion is illegal?

5. Have you done the bare minimum of blocking your states law enforcement from cooperating with out of state abortion law suits, civil or criminal?

6. Have you instructed your medical boards and malpractice insurance agencies to abstain from taking any adverse actions against providers working in a state where abortion is legal?

7. How are supporting travel funds in your blue states, since travel funds in states where patients live might be restricted by bans and unable to aid or abet patients?

8. What transportation services are being set up for counties in your state where there aren’t abortion clinics?

9. What grants can clinics apply to in your state?

10. What are the current miscarriage management and medication abortion training programs for doctors in your state? (This is so incredibly neglected if you look into it. Doctors can OPT OUT of being trained on anything related to abortion and still graduate.)

11. Are you apart of any multi-state coalitions working to increase access to medication abortion for out of state patients, who will face the most barriers?

12. Does your state Medicaid cover late term abortions, or is it less than the state’s estimated gestational age limit? (I am looking at you California!)