The Patronizing Lectures that Television Depicts and Texas Now Requires

by: Martha Kempner, RH Reality Check
Saturday 28 May 2011

Last Friday afternoon, I watched an episode of Private Practice that had aired the week before and was not all that surprised when one of the story lines focused on abortion. The show, which follows the lives of a group of doctors in Los Angeles, has dealt with the topic a number of times before. It is clear that the writers and producers don’t just support a woman’s right to choose but are willing to risk alienating some viewers in order to use the show as a platform to promote reproductive rights. In fact, though I often find the writing predictable and overly melodramatic (the show is one of those guilty TV pleasures), I think the writers have done a great job with the abortion debate. They have given characters a chance to express both sides of the issue but in the end they always present well-reasoned, and even well-researched, arguments for why the right to “safe, legal abortions, without judgment” is so important.

Still, I was struck by one scene in this episode which reminded me of the mandatory “counseling” some states are now making women go through before they can exercise their legal right to terminate a pregnancy.

The episode, “God Bless the Child,” focused on the clashing views of two OB/GYNs, Dr. Addison Montgomery who performs abortions (and has had one) and Dr. Naomi Bennett who is opposed to abortion for religious reasons. A patient, Patty, comes to Addison with uterine cramping and stomach pains about a month after having had an early abortion. It turns out the procedure was not done correctly and the woman is now 19 weeks pregnant. Addison explains that she can still legally have an abortion but that at this stage of the pregnancy it is a more complicated procedure. Patty decides to do it, but Naomi approaches her in the waiting room and pretty blatantly tries to talk her out of terminating her pregnancy.

During the scene to which I am referring, Naomi is bouncing her one-year-old granddaughter on her knee. Patty explains that she is not ready to have a baby:

Naomi:
No one is ever ready to have a baby. You just do it. My daughter was 16 when she got pregnant with Olivia here, she hadn’t even finished high school and I almost, no I tried, to force her to have an abortion and I’m so grateful that she didn’t. (She looks lovingly at the baby.)

Patty:
She had you to help her. My boyfriend, Charlie, couldn’t get away fast enough.

Naomi:
That just proves that he wasn’t ready to be a father.

Patty:
I can’t be a mother. I have nothing. I have to work all the time.

Naomi:
Being a mother isn’t about what you have. It’s about who you are.

So, basically, a wealthy, well-educated woman is trying to convince someone who has had to put off graduate school to work two jobs that being a mother will be fine despite her lack of resources. If that wasn’t bad enough, she moves on to some of the manipulative tactics common to crisis pregnancy centers.

Naomi: 
At 19 weeks do you know that your child can hear you? It can be startled by loud noises. Your child already has vocal chords, and finger prints, and air sacs in her lungs. She can move her arms and legs not unlike Olivia here. (She looks lovingly at the baby again.) I know you’re confused, which is why I think you need a little more time to think about it.

First of all, a 19-week-old fetus is nothing like a one-year old child. The comparison is unbelievably manipulative, as is having this conversation with a baby in the room to begin with. Moreover, the character of Patty was not at all confused. She knew that she wanted to terminate her pregnancy. She had made a rational decision based on the circumstances of her life; she had determined that she did not have the emotional or financial resources she needed to carry the pregnancy to term or become a parent. Suggesting she was confused just because she wasn’t making the same choice that Naomi would have made is patronizing, belittling, and insulting.

And yet, state lawmakers all over the country are doing the same thing when they impose 24-hour waiting periods, mandate ultrasounds, and require “counseling" sessions.

I don’t know if it was irony or coincidence (or totally unrelated) but while I was watching this scene and becoming infuriated—the governor of Texas was signing a law that will force women in his state to sit through a similarly humiliating lecture before they will be able to have an abortion. The new law, which goes into effect on September 1, says that at least 24 hours before an abortion is performed, a doctor must perform an ultrasound and then provide "in a manner understandable to a layperson, a verbal explanation of the results of the sonogram images, including a medical description of the dimensions of the embryo or fetus, the presence of cardiac activity, and the presence of external members and internal organs."

Exceptions are made for women who live more than 100 miles from an abortion provider (they only have to wait 2 hours between procedures) as well as for women who were raped and those who are carrying fetuses known to have “irreversible medical conditions that will cause a disability.” Most women in the state, however, will have to endure the sonogram and the lecture.

When pushing for such laws (Texas is not the first state to enact one), abortion foes argue that they are just enhancing informed consent, making sure women know what they are getting into, and protecting the life and health of the mother (and the fetus, of course). It’s obvious to me that what they are really doing is trying to put as many roadblocks between women and legal abortions as they can while they work on other fronts to overturn Roe v. Wade and eliminate the right to abortion altogether. What bothers me most about it, however, is how demeaning it is to women.

Most women who seek abortions are like Patty, they have made a well-informed, well-reasoned decision based on their own unique circumstances. Nonetheless, doctors are now forced to say, essentially: “Okay, but are you really sure? Before you really decide, look at this picture of your baby and listen to this description of her development. I know you think you want this, but why don’t you go home and sleep on it and come back tomorrow?” These laws suggest—not so subtly—that women are not capable of making such decisions on their own. I can’t help wondering whether those who support these laws think women are capable of making any rational decisions. (And, on a slightly different note, whether anyone would ever impose a remotely similar restriction on men.)

In the end, the character of Naomi came through. When Patty affirmed her desire to go through with the procedure but admitted she was scared and lonely, Naomi came into the operating room and held her hand.

Somehow, I doubt the supporters of the Texas law will ever show women that much understanding or compassion.

The Anti-Choice Hoax of the Century

by Charlotte Taft - Wednesday, September 15, 2010 by RH Reality Check

I’m inviting you to see why the so-called Right To Life movement is the hoax of the century.

I have been involved in the complex and fascinating work of providing abortion services since 1975. Despite the violence and the crazy politics, this is extraordinary work that has brought me in touch with extraordinary people. One of those is Bill Harrison, a doctor who has practiced in Fayetteville, Arkansas for nearly 20 years.

If you were searching for the most progressive community in the country, you probably wouldn’t choose Fayetteville. Yet women there need abortions just as women all over the country. And they have been grateful to have Bill’s excellent medical attention and warm heart. Dr. Harrison is one of the most courageous and eloquent people I know. He wrote about his career:

“I have dared to ride the tiger. This tiger is ignorance, intolerance and hatred incarnated in some of the anti-abortion Religious Right…I have chosen to ride this tiger unquietly, raking its side with verbal spurs, swinging my hat and whooping like a cowboy for the past 15 years.”

Over the years Bill Harrison has, not surprisingly, been the target of some horrible harassment by the RTL (I won’t give them the name they have chosen for themselves, because they gave up that privilege when they started murdering us).

Worse than that, he has been battling Leukemia. This summer he finally had to close his office as he went into Hospice Care. His illness has not been a secret. Everyone knows that he never would have given up or closed his office by choice. No one thinks he was defeated or intimidated by the self-righteous folks who show up on his sidewalk so certain they know what God wants every woman to do.

Yet these people are so without shame that they are celebrating the closing of Bill Harrison’s office as some kind of gift from God resulting from their activities. Posted July 28, 2010 on the 40 days for Life Newsletter:

“I had to share amazing news that, with God’s grace, could be repeated in YOUR community.
I just received word from our local 40 Days for Life campaign leaders in Fayetteville, Arkansas — and got confirmation from their local media — that their city’s one and only surgical abortion facility is CLOSING!

Praise God!

During three previous 40 Days for Life campaigns in Fayetteville, the abortionist grew more and more aggressive towards the prayer volunteers, taunting and ridiculing them in person — and in the media …

… but they did not react; they persisted in peaceful vigil and remained to pray for the unborn, the women entering the facility — and especially for the abortionist himself.

And NOW … that facility is closing down!”

When I first read this I was so furious and disgusted that they could be gleefully congratulating themselves and praising God for the terminal illness of my friend. Besides being far removed from any semblance of Christian Love, it was duplicitous to suggest to their supporters and donors that it was their actions that had caused the clinic in Fayetteville to close.

Then because I am a bleeding heart liberal I found myself pitying them because they are so hateful and they have tried so hard to control women for so many years with such little success. They must be terribly frustrated. Then I got angry again because, of course, that frustration has hypocritically led to anti-abortionists murdering 8 people in the name of life.

Then a huge light bulb went off in my head. It’s not that I didn’t know this before, but I found myself amazed that the antis have gotten away with this for so long. The RTL has succeeded in one of the most effective hoaxes of modern times—they have managed to con much of the public into believing that they are a morally-motivated group that loves life, loves babies and wants to prevent abortions.

BUT IT IS A LIE THAT THE RTL WANTS FEWER ABORTIONS. PERHAPS THE MORE CORRECT NAME FOR THEM IS ‘RIGHT TO LIE’.

How can I say that?

RTLs need abortion the way fire fighters need fires.

Picketing an abortion clinic to try to stop abortions is as effective as picketing an airport to try to get more people to vacation locally. It’s all show. And it is a cruel, bullying, vicious, smug and self-righteous show.

We all know that the RTL movement has enough politicians (mostly Republican) who vote lock step with them that they could change women’s reproductive health care overnight. All they would need to do is to support a few measures that are already supported by most Democrats. Here in no particular order, are a few simple things they could support that would be guaranteed to result in fewer untimely pregnancies, and hence fewer abortions in no specific order:

1. Make long-acting, effective reversible birth control methods like IUDs available free of charge to any women who want them. These birth control methods are effective for 5 to 10 years and don’t require a woman to remember to do anything in order to be protected from pregnancy. They can be used by women of any age. If a woman wants to get pregnant, she simply has the IUD removed and her normal fertility returns. This birth control method is widely used in Europe, but quite expensive and less frequently used in this country.

2. Cover all reproductive health care including all methods of birth control, infertility, tubal ligation, and vasectomy, under affordable health insurance.

3. Create excellent and affordable childcare so that women who want to have children can also make a living to support them.

4. Make sure young people learn how to create successful relationships as well as how to be responsible with their sexuality. That will give them the tools to create healthy families and be good parents with enough resources to care for their kids when the time is right.

5. Promote vasectomy as a very safe and inexpensive method of permanent birth control for men. This would be especially helpful for couples who have completed their families so that a late and unexpected pregnancy doesn’t through everyone into emotional turmoil.

6. Increase research into developing safer, more effective and long lasting methods of birth control.

7. Make sure the Morning After Treatment is easily available, inexpensive, and covered by health care insurance.

8. Require by law that all pharmacies either fill prescriptions for birth control and Morning After Treatment, or else inform over the phone, in advertisements, and by posted signs that they are Anti Choice Pharmacies, and the location of the nearest pharmacy that respect a woman’s choices.

Now that I see this so clearly, my plan is to print out this list and make sure that every little grandmother with her rosary, and every obnoxious, loud, angry man with his bull-horn, and every self-righteous seminary student waving a Bible, and every teenage girl with her chastity ring and her secret sex life standing between a woman and her own moral choice REALLY HAVE TO FACE that they are not doing any of the things that could actually lessen the need for abortion. And they will have to face that either they have been duped into giving their time to insult, intimidate, and harm women OR that they are part of perpetrating one of the most insidious, cruel,and successful hoaxes of our modern day.