Before I get to the time in my life when I felt most powerful, I am going to make a powerful statement:
To the antichoice, fundamentalist religious right, and any others that deem to inflict their beliefs and opinions on ohers, THIS IS MY BLOG!
If you don’t like what I have to say, move on.
There are basic inalienable human rights:
A woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion, on demand, without apology.
A child’s right to a safe home,education and a future free from war.
The right of two people to love each other openly regardless of their sexual orientation.
ALL people are created equal, that includes Arabs
Freedom of/from religion
Freedom of speech
These issues are not debatable. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t have one!
I own a powerful self-published book: “Our Bodies Ourselves.” It was printed on newsprint, stapled together with a price of 35 cents stamped on the front. The cover photo is one of a woman dead on her fleabag hotel room floor, the vicitm of a botched abortion. She is laying facedown, her knees drawn up to her chest and splayed, her buttocks are exposed, she is covered in blood. Even though it is a black and white picture it is poignant, painful and was a turning point for me.
That was before Roe v Wade became the law of the land. That was before my daughter was conceivd. But I vowed I would do my part to make the world of women a safer place. I joined NOW ( when it was fledgling and radical) I subscribed to MS and have a copy of the first issue. I made contributions to Planned Parenthood, I boycotted Wendy’s and Carl’s Jr. and other businesses large and small that did not support a woman’s right to a safe, legal abortion. I thought I was doing something powerful.
After the infamous Webster decision in 1992, throwing the decision about abortion back to the individual states, I I was passing the San Jose office of Planned Parenthood (PP). I pulled into the lot, marched into the receptionist and offered myself to help save abortion rights in California (for a start). The receptionist said there was going to be a meeting of a pro-choice group that night in the auditorium. She said: “Please sign up here, we need to have your name on a list so we can let you in.” Can you believe that? In 1992 in a prosperous city in Silicon Valley, women had to hold meetings about their legal reproductive rights under tight security. That was a shocking eye-opener for me. I attended the meeting, became involved with the Pro-Choice Coalition of Santa Clara County.
After doing clinic escort duty one Saturday in front of the Planned Parenthood clinic, I was furious. We were instructed by PP to not engage the anti choice protesters, we were to quietly escort the women to the door, but we also could not step off the PP property.
“This is bullshit!” I exclaimed when the nutcases with the bloody monkey head posters (they passed off as aborted fetuses) spooked a woman who ran into the street and was almost hit by a bus. I jumped down off the PP front steps, grabbed one of them pushed them onto PP property and called the police and had them arrested for trespassing. That was powerful for the moment.
I soon found out there was a radical group founded by some smart and brave women in San Francisco, most of them, but not all were Lesbians. They were training women in clinic defense tactics. They refused to let a bunch of bully MEN, shut down clinics because no one would stand up to them.
It took a while for them to accept me in my Liz Claiboirne blazers and tweed pants, but they did. And when you have put your body on the line, and trusted the other women to help you, you have bonded for life, and most of us have.
Our group had infiltrators that would risk their lives to attend anti choice meetings, they would report on their targeted clinics, and we would mobilize women and men from all over the Bay Area to be at the clinics before dawn and in place with our plywood defense boards. We formed human shields around the clinics. We dragged and carried the antis away from the clinic door. Remember, during this period the anti-choice movement had killed several doctors and clinic workers, bombed abortion clinics and had issued a proclamation that to kill a clinic escort, clinic staffer, a patient or doctor was “justifiable homicide”. And they called themselves Christians.
We chanted, when they prayed. When they called us commie-pinko-faggots, we said , “Thanks!” When they invoked Martin Luther King, we called them hypocrites. Reverend King would have been with us at the clinic door.
In a national proclamation the anti-choice groups announced they were targeting San Jose, California because the city had enacted a “bubble law” that mandated that the antis must stay 8 feet away from anyone approaching the clinic and 25 feet from the door. And the police were instructed that regardless of their personal beliefs they would uphold this law. It was our grouip and the coalitions that brought this law into being. That is powerful.
They came in giant busloads, some local hotels refused to rent them rooms, calling them dangerous. We mobilized students from across the country, we held strategy sessions, training seesions, and not one single clinic was closed by the antis that summer…that is power.
I became the spokewoman for the radical left, and it was fun. I was followed around by camera crews from around the country and the world. I was quoted daily in the papers and on TV and radio just as often. That was fame, and fame does impart power.
But the most powerful part for me, was being comfortable in my own skin. I have always been different, never fit the white middle class mold. Those women of the Bay Area Coaliton for Our Reproductive Rights helped me find myself. That is powerful.
I speak my mind and sometimes bear the slings and arrows from less free-thinking people. I speak the truth, I speak for my daughter and daughter-in-law, and for my nieces, and their friends.
When my daughter told me she admired me, that is powerful!
This is a writing exercise for Sunday Scribblings, to see other posts go hereSunday Scribblings.
