The world looks different today than it did a month ago. The majority of countries are under stay at home advisories. So how do we go about changing the world in a time like this? The subject I am most passionate about-the lack of access to family planning clinics in poor, rural communities, just doesn’t seem as important today as it did in March. So how do we take what we have learned about activism and apply it to the world today?
According to Cartwright and Mosher, there are disparities in family planning access in rural communities as well as for women with disabilities. As a disabled, lower class woman living in a rural community, this is a subject I’m increasingly passionate about. I have been very lucky. I have always had access to family planning clinics and as a result I have been able to live the majority of my twenties without an unplanned pregnancy. I was able to overcome the obstacles and enroll in college in my late twenties, and hopefully, I will be able to continue on this path and make it out of poverty. There are so many women who do not get the opportunities that I have had though. There are so many women who get trapped in abusive marriages and the cycle of poverty due to their lack of access to family planning. They have unplanned pregnancies and as a result can only focus on paycheck to paycheck and providing for their families than on making it out.
What I plan to do is look at the Pennsylvania lawmakers who are calling on the supreme court to review abortion (goerie) and start a twitter campaign urging them to reconsider their positions. I will utilize stories of women from all over the world that I will ask for via Women’s Rights News and Almost 30 Group. I will post these stories on the twitter account I will make and once I have done that I will direct message and tweet at this list of lawmakers, in hopes that seeing activism from the communities they represent will make them take a second look at the positions they are supporting. I understand that at this time it will be very difficult to get these very busy people to look at anything other than how to handle the current crisis; but, they may be working from home and they may be seeing things differently now than they did a month ago. So, rather than looking at this time as being more difficult to do this assignment, I am instead looking at it as a time for change in the U.S.
Works Cited
Hi Kiera,
This is an interesting topic and one that would be greatly beneficial to marginalized communities. I think when family planning is mentioned many people do not think about parents who are disabled, but there is a serious need for such services just as if the need would be for women who were not disabled.
As I read your praxis, one thing I thought you could add to your research by breaking it down, would be to include the issue of having healthcare workers who are particularly trained to address the needs of people with disabilities, needing family planning. Bringing awareness to this would not only increase the efficiency of healthcare but it would also decrease the number of pregnancies by providing proper reproductive education to families who are disabled. Trained professionals should have education, in teaching women with disabilities how do self breast exam, breast-feeding, and caring for infants. Other services should include genetic testing for handicapped women to find out more about probability.
I know this is a difficult time to put your plan in to full action but I think you are on the right track, and the more research you can do now would help you figure out how to go about putting your plan into action. In Boston, MA, there are constant updates with resources to help disabled, domestic violence or sexually abused, as well as poor. https://www.boston.gov/news/coronavirus-disease-covid-19-boston. You probably have this in PA as well. Also, I know my praxis subject was a bit different than yours but one thing that helped me was looking at how some agencies do business relating to my cause. This might help you too 🙂
Good luck!
Mary
I love this plan. Please share the Twitter handle you plan on using so we can follow along. I think that sharing communication eventually that you do have with lawmakers will help hold them accountable / get more attention. While this is a tough time to be able to get in contact with government officials, I feel like more people are paying attention than ever before. I love that you’re talking about an issue that hits close to home, and you’re able to recognize your privilege and utilize it to help others.
Hi Kiera,
I find your plan for activism to be personal, meaningful, and very crucial to women’s rights and even for the environment. Also, thank you for sharing your personal experience with access to family planning resources. You can feel the passion you have for this cause in the actions that you plan to take. When doing our “Bodies” blog posts, we learned from Ronnie Hawkins about how abortion can be an alternative way for a means of population control, but found that many women living in poverty do not have the access to these methods of family planning. With more access to family planning and other methods, women would then be able to limit unplanned pregnancies, as well as limit the contributions to the growing population causing a depletion of resources. Your course of action to make a social media campaign for your cause seems like a great method of raising awareness, given that most people and even politicians are on social media nowadays (especially during this time of quarantine). I appreciate your activism tackling such an important issue at a higher political level, and I’d be happy to contribute to your campaign if needed!
Hello Kiera. I think you chose a very interesting and important issue to address for the praxis unit. I am not capable of becoming pregnant (at least as far as I know), but access to safe abortions is something that I believe is a basic human right and one of the things I am most passionate about. My girlfriend and I have been together for over six years and plan to continue on for the forseeable future, both of us have no interest in children, though we both love our nephews and nieces. If my girlfriend were to become pregnant due to her health conditions it is very possible that child birth could kill her. The idea of a woman being forced to bear child is abhorrent to me and I am glad you are taking a stand on it.
How do you feel that this is connected to nature? What can ecofeminism do to further this issue that other feminist ideologies cannot. One of the connections I see made between women and nature is based upon the idea that women create life and men do not. Do you feel like this mentality could be hurtful to abortion rights, or do you feel like it could be helpful. Would love to get some of your thoughts on this and I look forward to reading the results of your praxis.
Hi Kiera,
Great idea for activism, this is an area that definitely needs as much support as it can get. I myself relied on planned parenthood as a teenager. I was in a long term relationship from the an 16 to a 21 year old. My parents gave me their blessing. Not sure why it came as such a huge shock to my mother when she found out I was taking birth control. She was so angry at me for going on the pill, but allowed me to date my ex husband at 21 years old. Never made sense to me. Having a mother like that, I had nowhere to turn except planned parenthood to protect myself from pregnancy at 16. I think there are so many girls in similar situations. Unable to speak to family about sensitive subjects. I watched a film on Kanopy, called Abortion: Stories Women Tell . It was all about planned parenthood and how these abortion clinics have to deal everyday with massive protests by religious fanatics. It gets violent in some cases. Women are yelled at and taunted outside the clinic. It’s awful. We really need people like you to get involved and create awareness of how important these clinics are to women and their health.