Chipping Away at Roe

[Content Note: Anti-choice legislation.]

In totally unrelated news to the post below (she said acerbically), the Guttmacher Institute has reported to no one's surprise that states enacted a record number of abortion restrictions last year.

In the 50 states combined, legislators introduced more than 1,100 reproductive health and rights-related provisions, a sharp increase from the 950 introduced in 2010. By year's end, 135 of these provisions had been enacted in 36 states, an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.

...Fully 68% of these new provisions—92 in 24 states—-restrict access to abortion services, a striking increase from last year, when 26% of new provisions restricted abortion. The 92 new abortion restrictions enacted in 2011 shattered the previous record of 34 adopted in 2005.

I know, believe me I know, that I am a broken record, but restricting abortion consigns women and trans men to use their bodies to carry pregnancies to term against their wills, which is an act of violence.

The anti-choice movement has gained momentum with the unilateral support of the Republican Party, turning what was once a radical fringe movement into nothing less than state-sponsored terrorism, in defense of an inherently violent ideology.

This issue must be a centerpiece of President Obama's campaign, or he is going to have to win without me. I will never hope that he does not resoundingly trounce whatever Mitt Romney eventually wins the primary and runs as the Republican nominee. Between President Obama and a Republican, I want Obama to win. But I will not be able in good conscience to actively and affirmatively support a candidate who does not meaningfully address a domestic terrorist campaign being waged against pro-choice women and our allies.

That is asking me to participate in my own marginalization, to support a threat against my own safety. And that I simply cannot do.

Please, Mr. President. Speak up for us.

Not Terrorism (But Should Be)

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism.]

Fred Clark at Slacktivist has an important follow-up to my post yesterday about the arrest of Bobby Joe Rogers for setting the fire at a women's clinic in Pensacola, Florida. Fred looks at what happened and what the definition of domestic terrorism in the US Code is, and asks: "How is that not domestic terrorism?"

Good question.

There's still time for federal authorities to amend the charges. Let us hope that they do.

Otherwise, feminist women and our pro-choice allies might get the impression that our government doesn't give a fuck about us. Ahem.

Not a Terrorist

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism.]

On Tuesday, I wrote about a fire at a women's clinic in Pensacola, Florida, which had previously been bombed twice and was the site of the fatal shootings of Dr. John Britton and clinic escort James Barrett.

Today, Bobby Joe Rogers, 41, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was arrested and federally charged with one count of Damaging a Building by Fire or Explosive, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

He is (allegedly) a terrorist. This was terrorism.

Both Sides Are Blah Blah Yawn

by Shaker TC

[Comment Note: This post contains discussion of anti-choice narratives and violence.]

I have mixed feelings about the public radio show "This American Life," but a segment in their Nemeses episode on the abortion debate in Boston made me nauseated to the core of my being. (The transcript is here; bring a barf bag.) "This American Life" decides to double down on the Jon Stewart-eqsue "both sides do it" meme for the abortion debate. Ira Glass is oozing with unacknowledged privilege as he talks about the attempt for the two sides of the debate to find common ground. The frame of the entire piece is that both sides of the debate are equally responsible for the dynamic.

Here's the kicker for me: This "both sides do it" frame is in the context of an abortion clinic shooting.

Along with Ira Glass, the host of "This American Life," the key commentator on the issue is white male academic Peter Coleman from the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University.

Peter Coleman: I think the pro-life movement was ashamed and infuriated by what had happened. I think the pro-choice movement was terrified and traumatized. And so the governor, the archdiocese, called for dialogue.

Notice that the people directly affected by the shooting weren't calling for dialogue with a movement with which the killers identified and were affiliated. But they were nonetheless obliged to participate in unwanted bridge-building to make the patriarchy feel better.

Naturally that bridge had to be built on the backs of women. All of the folks involved in the dialogue were women—on both sides of the debate. According to ivory tower academic Coleman, one of the two men discussing this enforced dialogue between women, the worst thing that could happen is blame and responsibility, because that's for mean harpies.

Peter Coleman: At first, the conversation was hard. Even though they agreed to some guidelines and how to have this conversation in a way that they felt would be constructive, it was hard to hold to those guidelines initially.

Ira Glass: And you write about that, that there was a lot of finger pointing back and forth. Everybody thought, we're not going to do any finger pointing. But in fact, they couldn't help themselves is what you write.

Peter Coleman: It's what they did. It's what they had been doing. They were used to doing it. They knew the talking points. And it was so hard to try to put those away.

So, the abortion rights supporters, whose community is being terrorized, are disallowed from feeling that members of a movement with which a terrorist was involved could or should be held accountable. That's just finger-pointing.

Then Ira Glass decides to play clueless person of privilege by framing the whole thing as a silly conflict that people were irrationally holding onto—as if there weren't VALID REASONS for animosity toward anti-choice proponents like, I don't know, people who shoot people associated with abortion clinics.

Ira Glass: These are precisely the conflicts that Peter Coleman studies. They're the conflicts where whatever the original dispute happened to be about, everybody has moved past that long ago. And things have snowballed. And people started to organize their identities around the conflict.

As an abortion rights activist, I know damn well what I'm fighting for. It's not some long-held grudge. It's the bodily autonomy of women. Refer to any one of Melissa's awesome posts on Jon Stewart on why this attitude of "stop the bickering" when it comes to issues of human rights is so nauseating. If Ira Glass believes that the issue of abortion rights is based on some petty grudge that everyone has moved past, he has the empathy of a rock.
And then comes the mother of all victim-blaming.

Peter Coleman: Because what did happen is that the rhetoric changed. The conversations that would happen publicly around abortion, around pro-life, pro-choice, lost a lot of the edge and the vitriol in the community that it had had prior to the shooting and prior to the dialogue process.

Ira Glass: Because these women were leaders in those movements on both sides and—

Peter Coleman: They consciously decided that part of what they had done is contribute to the conditions where an event like this could take place.

Yep, apparently, abortion rights folks share responsibility for an anti-abortion shooter coming into their offices. The pro-choice advocates had to do some real soul-searching to see how they contributed to a shooting happening in their clinic to their clients, I'm sure.

There's a whole lot o' privilege playing out in this entire piece, from the unacknowledged point that the people pushing for dialogue were patriarchal institutions, to Ira Glass' characterizing an issue of the bodily autonomy of half the population as something people have "moved past," to the piece saying that both sides saw they had a role in the shooting. Poor Ira Glass, his only wish is that the layDEEEZ play nice.

This was completely nauseating and further proof that the "liberal" public radio is pretty damn unfriendly to progressive women.

Today in Totally Not Terrorism

[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism.]

There are a lot of things that don't get called terrorism in this country, but chief among them is the anti-choice movement, which is the most brazen, unapologetic terrorist campaign in the US, its co-ordination and orchestration done right out in the open, where no one in the media or politics will call it what it is. It is an inherently violent ideology, backed by a decades-long campaign of intimidation, harassment and violence directed at abortion providers and abortion seekers, that is ignored by one party and mainstreamed as a central plank of its party platform by the other.

And still, every goddamn episode of blatant terrorism against women's clinics is treated like an isolated incident.

Today, another story about a fire at a women's clinic in Pensacola, Florida—a clinic which has already been bombed twice and was the site of the fatal shootings of Dr. John Britton and clinic escort James Barrett—and CNN manages to report it without ever using the word "terrorism" in its piece.

Again, this despite the fact that it has already been the site of two terrorist attacks, and in spite of Pensacola Police Chief Chip Simmons having told the Pensacola News-Journal that to call the fire suspicious "would be an understatement."

"Obviously somebody doesn't like abortion," resident Danielle Moulden told WEAR. "I'm against it myself, but I'd never go that far."

Well, at least we got to hear from someone who's against abortion. That's the important thing.

[H/T to @OnTheIssues.]

MLK Day Bomber Gets 32 Years for Not-Terrorism

[Trigger warning for terrorism, violence, racism.]

In January of this year, I wrote about an incident of Totally Not Terrorism that our Liberal Media failed to widely report with the breathless intensity reserved for brown-skinned terrorists who target white men: An undetonated backpack bomb, in which the packed shrapnel was coated with an anticoagulant to prevent blood clotting, was found along the parade route of a Martin Luther King Day event in Spokane, Washington. Fortunately, the device was discovered before its engineer could remotely trigger it, and no one was injured.

By March, what was obvious was confirmed: The suspect, Kevin Harpham, is a white supremacist, and for years had been on the radar of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, despite his not even being a significant player in organized white supremacy.

Harpham is a terrorist.

The good news is that he was found, charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to commit a federal hate crime, pleaded guilty in September, and has now been sentenced to 32 years.

The bad news is that this is still barely a blip on the radar, and the linked story at CNN does not even use the word "terrorism," despite quoting a Justice Department statement reading: "Harpham admitted that he is a white supremacist and white separatist, and that he placed the explosive device at the march with the intent to cause bodily injury to the person or persons in order to further his racist beliefs."

Meanwhile, Harpham, from whose home FBI agents excavated "racist books and magazines, and information about domestic terrorism ... an AK-47 assault rifle, a handgun, and a digital clock that had been modified as a timing device," was described by his federally-appointed defense attorney Kailey Moran as someone who "cared for others" and was viewed by his friends and family as "a kind-hearted and gentle soul who would go to any length to help someone in need."

Moran's just doing her job (hoo boy, I would not want that job, and I am grateful to the people who are willing to do it); the media, however, is under no obligation to report the irrelevant sentimental bullshit that a federal defender presents to the court on a confessed terrorist's behalf.

Is it newsworthy that Harpham's family thinks he's a swell fella? Nope. And I daresay I don't remember reading what Zacarias Moussaoui's BFFs thought of him during his trial. "He was always there to help us move to a new underground hideout!" Great. Who cares.

But suddenly when it's a white man (who served his country!) who conspires to murder people of color, it is of the utmost importance to report that the people who loved a dude who made no secret of his violent racism thought he was a nice guy.

Yeah, he's a real goddamn charmer. Rot, fucko.

[H/T to Pam.]