The Hardest Part

The hardest part wasn't the sexual assault, the secrecy, the coercion or even the bruises. It wasn't the broken trust, the violation, the abuse or the manipulation. It was reading about Jane in the local news and knowing that I could have stopped him from hurting her. It was knowing that Jane, a complete innocent in this situation, was raped on the street by an individual I knew should not be on the streets. It was looking down at my arms and knowing exactly what her arms looked like with bruises and finger marks. It was putting my hand on my neck and knowing exactly what it felt like to choke, suffocate, stop breathing. It was knowing exactly what look he had in his eyes as he forced her life off course.

The pain doesn't stop, but my only consolation to myself is that I must make every effort to prevent that pain from befalling anyone...especially girls like Jane who should never have crossed paths with him. It was my inaction that led to her pain, and that is a burden I have to live with forever. Yet it is more so a burden because there is more than Jane. There is also Mary, Elizabeth, Jenny, Ashley, Nicole, and who knows how many girls whose lives were thrown off-course by him because I didn't take action.

It hurts to tell. But it hurts more not to tell.

"The Hardest Choice"

And second, because this was a choice. When you have children, literally from the moment you realize you're pregnant till the day they go off to college, your days are filled with choices — about birth plans, breastfeeding, diaper types, potty training, preschool curricula, sports and activities, clothing and Internet use, dating and driving, and on and on. But when your pregnancy takes the kind of turn mine did, all your mothering boils down to one choice — and I chose to spare my child the suffering of a brief, painful life. Of all the million and one things I wished I could be doing for this child, the only act of love circumstances allowed me to perform was this one. The women who went to Dr. Tiller made the same choice, under even more excruciating circumstances. Now that he's gone, who will help women like them?

Read her full perspective HERE.

Isaacson-Jones’ poem

An Open Letter to 21 Million Women-

Where are you?
For over 16 years we have provided
you with choices
Painful choices
I remember
I sometimes cried with you.
Choices, nevertheless, when you were desperate.

Remember how we protected your privacy
and treated you with dignity and respect
when you
were famous
had been brought to us in shackles
with an armed guard, or
were terrified
that you would run into
one of your students?
I remember each of you.

Our clinic was firebombed.
Do you recall?
Exhausted and terrified we had
been up all night.
We rerouted you to another clinic
because you wanted an abortion that day.
Where are you?

Priding ourselves on providing abortions for
those who cannot pay, we have spent millions
of dollars that we never really
had caring for you. We wanted
to give a choice.
I also gave you cab fare and
money for dinner from my own pocket.
Have you forgotten?

I remember you cried and asked me how
you could carry this pregnancy to term when
you were abusing the children you had,
were having an affair,
tested positive for AIDS,
could not handle another,
were raped by your mother’s boyfriend,
pregnant by your father and
shocked and torn apart when
your very much wanted and loved
fetus was found to be
severely deformed.

Your mother picketed our clinic
regularly. We brought you in after dark.
Have you mustered the courage
to tell her that you are pro-choice?
You are.
Aren’t you?

I recall shielding your shaking body, guiding you
and you husband through the picket lines.
They screamed adoption, not abortion!
You wondered how you could explain your
choice to your young children.

You broke our hearts.
You had just celebrated your twelfth birthday
when you came to us. You clutched
your teddy bear, sucked your thumb
and cried out for your mom who asked
you why you had gotten yourself pregnant.
You replied that you just wanted to be grown.
You’re twenty today.
Where are you?

I pretend I don’t know you in the market,
at social gatherings and on the street.
I told you I would.
After your procedure you told me that you would
fight for reproductive choices (parenthood,
adoption, and abortion) for your mother, daughters,
and grandchildren. You will . . . won’t you?

I have no regrets. I care about
each and every one of you and
treasure all that you’ve taught me.
But I’m angry. I can’t do this alone.
I’m not asking you to speak about your abortion, but
You need to speak out and you need to speak
out now. Where are you?

In memory of Dr. Tiller, don't we owe him at the very least to stand up for women's right to choose and to speak out?

Summer Reading List - Books that Changed My Life

Summer is here! Since I haven't read for pleasure in a while, here is a list of books that have changed my life and books that *will* change my life (they are on my to-read list). I'm a huge non-fiction junkie...but if anyone knows of good fictional feminist-friendly reading, please let me know! So far though, I have found it difficult to read anything fictional without having problems with the content, character development, etc.

All-Time Favorite

Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist

This book came at an important point in my life right as I was slowly realizing that the events in my life had helped me discover my inner feminist. There were stories that made me smile, and stories that made me writhe with anger. And at the same time, there were stories that made me cry when I realized that the pain I went through was not singular to me, but something that united me with women who I had never met and would never meet.

That knowledge and awareness helped understand all the different facets of feminism and how I fit into the big picture. It helped me understand that while each woman's voice and experiences were unique, there was still a common underlying thread that tied us all together -- being the product our of environment and also the victim of culture.

This collection of stories helped change my life by being my best friend and also my mentor. When I read the stories now, I don't always cry. But I feel stronger when I realize that I am not alone, and that it is finally time that I am ready to do something to change the world we live in.

All-Time Favorite
Cunt: A Declaration of Independence

Several of the stories in Listen Up! (above) made a huge impact on me, including Inga Muscio's story about her abortions and finally her natural termination of pregnancy. In Inga Muscio's story, her voice was strong, and her experience was not commonly heard of. A year later, I stumbled across "Cunt" and decided to read it, liking it for its rebellious name and virtually giving culture and its ideals the middle finger. It wasn't until I read her story a second time in the book that I finally made the connection that the author was the same individual.

Inga is eloquent-- she writes powerfully, and her words are eloquent and touching. She translates raw human emotions into words, and she made me cry when she wrote about how her mother's rape consequently affected not only her mother, but how she raised her daughters, and in the future, how her daughters would raise their daughters. It makes us realize that all of our actions, no matter what action, has the potential to not only effect the individual but also generations of individuals to follow. To have that kind of influence over other people's lives is powerful, but to use that power responsibly and beneficially is where some people go wrong.

I highly recommend this book not only because it verbalized what I had been feeling for months, but because it provides a deeper look at many things we take for granted. Ingra provides insight into how our culture works and how we think/behave as products of culture. She explains why women do not unite together, and insists that we take control of the English language because cunt is only a derogative term if we let it be. Therefore, others can only control us if we allow them to. Otherwise, we are our own masters, and that is all there is to it.

First Item on my Summer Reading List

This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor

Haven't read the book, but cannot wait to receive it in the mail. The book details the life of an abortion doctor who provides honesty, experience and even criticism about abortion clinics.

The Washington Post wrote:

In the 35 years since Roe v. Wade, human stories and hard science have been the
dueling weapons of the abortion wars. Abortion opponents have presented
emotional accounts of the destruction of fetuses -- and, more recently, tales of
distress from women who regret their abortions. Supporters of legal abortion
have often countered with data on the decline in backstreet abortions and
improvements in women's health and welfare.
So it's a welcome change to see
two new books in which the pro-life and pro-choice camps switch their usual
tactics. In This Common Secret, Susan Wicklund tells riveting stories about
patients she has treated during nearly 20 years as an abortion provider.
Meanwhile, in Embryo, Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen argue on
scientific and philosophical grounds that from its first moment as a one-cell
organism, the embryo is a living human being and, thus, entitled to legal
protection. If Wicklund's book is the more effective, perhaps that's because
she's not claiming to prove one objective truth, just conveying her own
experience -- and because she has good, multifaceted stories to tell.
As a
26-year-old single mother working part-time and getting by on welfare and food
stamps, Susan Wicklund became one of the first members of her large Wisconsin
family to go to college. Before she decided to become a doctor and specialize in
women's health, she had her own abortion to surmount -- a 1976 procedure that
she did not understand, and that she sobbed and fought her way through until a
doctor told her to shut up and drugged her. This horror story could come
straight out of an anti-abortion pamphlet were it not for the determination
Wicklund drew from it as she began medical school: "I could make sure my
patients were treated differently than I had been -- with respect and decency.
The memory of my own abortion troubled me, but it also hardened my resolve."

Summer time = summer reading.

Comment if you have any great books that everyone should read!

My Little Red Book

It's about time we taught our little girls to love their bodies. Rather than constantly label menstruation as the curse and therefore implying that all women are cursed, why can't we view periods from a different perspective?

Ultimately, MY LITTLE RED BOOK is more than a collection of stories. It is a call for a change in attitude, for a new way of seeing periods. In a time when the taboo around menstruation seems to be one of the few left standing, it makes a difficult subject easier to talk about, and helps girls feel proud instead of embarrassed or ashamed.

Menstruating is nothing to be ashamed about. Nor is being a woman anything to be ashamed about. Get reading!

Why not?

So lately there has been a lot of talk about this girl selling her virginity online. Personally, I think it's a great idea, if that's something you're comfortable doing. There are tons of firsts in our lifetime, including first kiss, first time you drove, first time you drank, and virginity is simply overrated. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a virgin, but conversely, there is also absolutely nothing wrong with not being a virgin.



Before we start categorizing and assigning moral value to this news story, take a moment to think about the social commentary this girl is making by auctioning her virginity. After all, it IS her body and it IS her choice. As a culture, we treat sex as a commodity anyways, so why not just do away with the pretenses and admit it?

Crossing the Line

Boys can do it too!