Late last night, a Federal Appeals Court reversed the Monday decision by a Texas Court that stayed the implementation of draconian anti-abortion state laws that would have shuttered almost half the abortion clinics in Texas. These were the laws that Wendy Davis filibustered. So, today, up to 13 clinics in Texas had to immediately stop performing abortions. These clinics serve women in mostly outlying rural areas of Texas and will cause women untold time, money and anxiety to travel to Houston, Dallas or Austin to obtain care. Many will give up and have babies. Others will jump through the hoops and persevere at great cost to mental, physical, and financial health.
This has previously been diaried HERE, HERE and HERE.
Today, my friend and longtime colleague, Charlotte Taft, of the Abortion Care Network penned a soulful piece that she has requested I reprint in full here. Charlotte used to run a clinic in Dallas and has a long history of working with women in Texas.
As I write this I am so full of fury and fear that I can hardly breathe. I have spent my life working for abortion rights--making sure that women can make safe decisions about when and whether to bring new life into the world through their bodies. There is no choice that is more responsible, moral, or respectful of life. And today the movement to make abortion illegal has dealt that choice a powerful blow.
I am Director of the Abortion Care Network, an organization of independent abortion providers and allies. I write on behalf of providers, many of whom have given four decades to caring for women, and who are threatened with extinction as never before.
In AA, it is said, “Alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful.” That is how I feel about the anti abortion movement. Cunning, because it seems to be everywhere, attacking women’s rights from every direction in ways that are more and more clever and dishonest. Baffling because it is rife with contradictions, hypocrisy, cruelty, arrogance, and self-righteousness; while masquerading as Christian love. Powerful, because the movement saw an opportunity and latched onto the Tea Party, establishing far right wing Super Majorities in state after state and decimating women’s rights, voting rights, labor unions, civil rights, and every progressive movement they could find. And also powerful because they have rendered so many good people silent.
I am reluctant to compare any injustice to the Holocaust, but today’s 5th Circuit panel decision that will lead to the immediate closing of at least 13 Texas clinics reminds me of an often-quoted lesson from that terrible time:
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me.”― Martin Niemöller
In the United States more than 160,000,000 people have had a personal experience of abortion—as a patient, the man involved, or a supportive friend. Yet they are not speaking out. The shame and stigma that have been intentionally, deliberately and almost gleefully loaded on those who have chosen abortion have created a deafening silence. Most people in this country are part of those whose rights are being ‘come for’. Yet they have a personal story that they do not tell.
Anti abortion zealots have long recognized that there must be abortion providers in order for women to access abortion care. For forty years we providers have been bombed and burned and murdered and harassed and intimidated and threatened and kidnapped and isolated. In recent times anti abortion forces have found even more cunning and effective ways to use government to make it difficult and in some cases literally impossible to provide abortion care. They have exploited a simplistic black and white morality to contribute to the stigma against us. And pro-choice people may unintentionally add to that stigma by supporting a theoretical ‘right to choose’ but being uncomfortable to talk honestly about abortion—and being uncomfortable with the women and men who provide abortion care every day.
There is nothing easy about abortion—it is a subject that calls for honest exploration, not bumper sticker politics. And that takes courage. Abortion providers have continued to care for women through all the incredible abuse we have experienced. We are grateful for the extraordinary shows of opposition to anti abortion laws. But still the isolation is real, the odds are against us, and the silence is deadly. We are not victims—but we need millions of people to speak out not only for women and reproductive rights, but also for clinics right now!
We need you to be there for us, as we have been there for you.
The floor is yours.