VideoIf you can’t say it, don’t legislate it.

As the War on Women rages on, anti-woman forces – primarily a cadre of ultra-conservative men – continue to beef up their offensive troops. They now have Paul Ryan “a no abortions ever” kind of guy, teaming up with Mitt “I’ve always been pro-life” Romney, and together, they’ve created a party platform that represents the biggest threat to Roe v Wade we’ve seen thus far.

New to the frontline, we’ve been introduced to the rogue soldier, Representative Todd Akin, a Missouri candidate for the U.S. Senate. In a recent interview, Rep. Akin was seen munching on a tasty foot in his mouth as he expressed his belief that in most cases of “legitimate” rape, “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” thereby preventing pregnancy. Sadly, he isn’t the only politician who actually believes this absurd theory, nor does he stand alone in his justification for excluding rape-induced pregnancies in legislation that would restrict abortion funding.

Though our battles have escalated in the 2012 presidential campaign, women have long been besieged by fundamentalist religious groups, a male-dominated government, and society at large. It wasn’t until the 19^th Amendment was ratified in 1920, that women were granted the right to vote. Finally, we were allowed to raise our political voices, even if we would not be spared continuing efforts to silence us. We’re now all too aware that a strong declaration of opinion can lead to consequences. The duality of our political system was clearly exposed when Michigan’s State Rep. Lisa Brown, was censured for using the word “vagina” during a debate on abortion rights. Politicizing the word “vagina” helped mobilize many of us who had grown a little too accustomed to minding our manners.

If you can say it, display it.

Women have continued to say “vagina.”

Some even seek to destigmatize other descriptive terms for female genitalia, speaking – what may still be to many – the unspeakable. Others, the more demonstrative among us, are showing their vaginas (or vaginae…) to the world in a no-skirt-lifting fashion, through various forms of artistic expression. Vagina art may not be a new concept, but it is a window to society’s changing regard for women throughout history – from divine worship to oppression and repression.

Instead of conforming to expectations of “good girl” behavior, we’re seeing an emergence of newly empowered and emboldened women who have set up their easels, raided granny’s baskets of crochet hooks, knitting needles, embroidery kits, and hauled the sewing machines down from the attic. The results, as seen in the examples we’ve collected, evoke a broad range of emotions. Laughter. Anger. Sadness. Pride. Each creative effort celebrates the artistry of the individual as well as our collective identity. All have been inspired by “the sacred source of life” –the vagina.

Slideshow Music Courtesy JSP Records “Mama Don’t Allow It” by Julia Lee & Her Boyfriends; Images: Not Your Average Hooker, Hypgnosis, Shine Maverick Jewelry, Hypgnosis, Johnny B Wilde,  Expired Goods, Scarlet Tentacle, Purple Hippo Stitches, I Wear Party Hats, spidercamp, Irma Diaz/SourOctopus, TheVaginaZine, The Tie Dye Bohemian, Alex Florschutz, Adrien Art, Tina Casebeer/wikit626, ©Carrie Reichardt, Alex Florschutz, Woman In Bloom, thepixelrat, The Voting Box , VJazzle, Bridesmaids, Wedding Dress, Protest/CODEPINK, ©Ursula Kölle, Cupcakes, Body Parts Poster, Pink Flannel by Daria, Graffiti, Stenciled Tees/#waronwomen, ampule, the moss girl, ©Lydia Shalanko, Protest/CODEPINK, Scarlet Tentacle, Pochos Cosas, Vulva Love Lovely, Sinful Soap Favors, Family Tree Glass, Delicious Accessories

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In the latest assault on reproductive rights, losing a pregnancy could mean serious legal consequences for the mother – even the death penalty.

Imagine that you are several weeks pregnant and growing more excited by the day. You have decided to wait to tell people until you are past that tricky first trimester, the time period of so many losses (some estimate that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage). At your first checkup, the doctor scans your belly and frowns. Scans again and frowns. There is no heartbeat. An ultrasound confirms that your baby is not moving and there is no blood flow, just a sad, little unmoving body.

As you cry for your loss and for the child you will never know, a male police officer arrives and asks you, “What did you do to cause this?” As you are trying to come to terms with your own unfounded feelings of guilt, a man is putting it into words and demanding answers, never mind the fact that in most cases doctors cannot determine the precise cause of a miscarriage. Despite that, the burden is on you to prove that your behavior did not in some way cause your pregnancy to terminate, or you could face life in jail or the death penalty.

Sound like something from The Handmaid’s Tale? Margaret Atwood might be prescient. We are well on our way to living in a dystopian society caused by the systematic dismantling of women’s healthcare and rights. 2011 has been an appalling year for women. State after state has mounted a legislative assault on Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood, chipping away at a woman’s right to choose, access to affordable birth control, STD screening and early breast cancer detection. But, it hasn’t stopped there.

Legislators have suggested that women carry abortion insurance in the event they might be raped and a Georgia bill proposes prosecution of women who can’t prove they didn’t intentionally cause a miscarriage. Thirty-eight states have fetal homicide laws, designed to protect the fetus from attack from a third party, like a violent male partner, while other states have chemical endangerment laws passed to punish parents who expose their children to meth fumes – yet overwhelmingly, these laws are now being used against the women themselves. South Carolina has prosecuted one man for attacking a pregnant woman, but almost three hundred women for their behavior during pregnancy. Other states have followed suit, twisting the language to focus on punishing women.

Of all the proposed and recently passed legislation, the Georgia bill proposed by Rep. Bobby Franklin potentially punishing women for miscarriages is the most disturbing. The language of the law demands that women prove “no human involvement whatsoever in the causation.” This vague language leaves the door wide open for prosecutorial abuse.

The bill has been shelved for now (and in a further twist, the representative behind it, Bobby Franklin, passed away July 26th during development of this story). Regardless of the tragedy of this individual’s death, the fact that anyone could put that into words, and attempt to pass it, affecting thousands of women in one state with the potential for other state legislators to follow suit – speaks volumes about what men in power think of women. It spells out their belief that they have the right to oppress women and punish them without proof for perceived behaviors and lifestyle choices.

Even though many pregnancies end in miscarriage, doctors routinely tell women that they will not do any additional testing until a woman has had three consecutive losses. Three investigations. Three heartbreaks where a mother can be questioned and be blamed, when she is already feeling grief, hopelessness and despair of ever having the child she wants so much. It is an incredibly private and painful time, and legislators want to not only intrude, but vilify and punish. Should law enforcement really determine if a woman is to be charged, when even doctors can’t say with certainty why a pregnancy ended and will do nothing about it until she has had three losses?

What is the purpose of this law? It and others like it are simply state-sanctioned witch hunts. The chemical endangerment law, passed to prosecute parents who subject their children to harmful fumes in meth labs, has been expanded to include pregnant women who tests positive for drug use or whose infants test positive after birth, and even women who have lost pregnancies when the cause can’t be proven.

Prosecuting women with drug problems would seem like a deterrent to drug use during pregnancy, but realistically, it will more likely just cause women to not seek help, and when they are pregnant is precisely the time they need help the most – before their babies are damaged by their habits. This could cause more babies to be born with health problems or more women to seek abortions for fear of being prosecuted if their baby tests positive.

This could deter women from considering giving up their children for adoption, as well. Many adoption agencies question birth mothers about their medical histories and habits during pregnancy to get an idea of the health of the child. If birth mothers believe that their behavior will be used against them, they will either lie or simply avoid adoption altogether.

This virtually eliminates a woman’s right to medical privacy. No woman will want to tell her doctor or any other medical health professional the truth about her habits, and this can have serious repercussions when medical staff don’t have all the facts when they are treating someone. Will all reports of miscarriages be investigated? With state budgets facing shortfalls and police forces enduring personnel cuts, is this what police should spend their time on?

Will women have to be nervous about every action they take? What if a woman drinks alcohol before she knows that she is pregnant and suffers a miscarriage? What about any woman who goes against a doctor’s advice and loses her pregnancy later, even though those two events might not be linked at all? What does “human involvement” mean? Where does it stop and who will the law be enforced against? Will all hospitals have to report gunshot victims and miscarriages?

I have a friend whose daughter died in utero 10 days before her due date, another who lost two different babies at 18 weeks, another whose twin girls were stillborn at 22 weeks, and several who had one, two or three miscarriages. If pressed, none of them could prove “no human involvement,” since their doctors weren’t even sure why it happened. Should these tragedies have potentially cost my friends their lives?

image: Y, La Bella Vida, Tourist On Earth

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Does abortion cause psychological trauma? No, but judging might.

The imagined link between abortion and psychosis is just that: imaginary. But just in case we weren’t sure, last month, the New England Journal of Medicine published a Danish study showing definitively that abortion does not put a woman at increased risk for subsequent psychiatric disorders.

This isn’t even news, but try saying that at the picket line. Last year’s UCSF-Guttmacher Institute study found no relationship between abortion and later mental health problems. In 2008, Johns Hopkins did a meta-analysis of studies and came to the same conclusion. The American Psychological Association’s official position is that abortion does not lead to increased risk of mental health problems, a position the association has held since 2008.

But why stop saying something just because it happens to not be true? Despite the evidence from reputable health authorities, the battle goes on. And that’s just the way the anti-choice movement likes it.

In the late ’80s, the anti-abortion movement realized that screeching about Jesus was not winning them many fans, and that most people, pro-lifers included, tended to support things like individual liberty and protecting women’s health. So instead of putting all the focus on the fetus, they added a softer, gentler, more insidious tactic: claiming that abortion hurts women. They turned the debate from one about sticky moral questions like “When does life begin?” into one about objective science and medicine, re-casting women as the vulnerable victims.

Suddenly, abortions were causing breast cancer, subjecting women to dangerous surgery, impairing fertility, and triggering a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder called “post–abortion syndrome.” If you believed the hype, women everywhere were suffering from incapacitating depression, guilt, despair, regret, and suicidal thoughts, even though not one reputable or methodologically sound study has ever supported any of these claims. At any anti-abortion rally today, the signs claiming “I regret my abortion” or “Abortion hurts women,” are likely to outnumber the signs depicting gruesomely dismembered fetuses – because it works.

Despite being medically suspect (and we’re being generous here), the mental health claim has been a successful tactic in chipping away at choice. Even the specter of these claims is enough to allow the anti-choice movement to pass laws requiring that women watch ultrasounds, receive counseling, hear inaccurate medical information, or undergo a state-mandated waiting period before having an abortion, all under the guise of concern for our welfare.

If you think the paternalistic faux concern was limited to Bible-belt senators, think again. In his majority opinion upholding the 2007 partial-birth abortion ban, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy  wrote, “The State has an interest in ensuring so grave a choice is well informed. It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns…what once she did not know.” This is for our own good, you see.

Of course, there’s no right or wrong way to react to an abortion. Research shows that most women report feeling relief, but some women do experience sadness or guilt. A few even experience regret. But studies have repeatedly found that the best predictor of a woman’s mental health after an abortion is her mental health beforehand. Those relatively few women who do experience prolonged grief, anxiety, or depression are more likely to have had mental health problems before the procedure, they are more likely to have less social support for their decision, and they are more likely to have been influenced by anti-choice propaganda or picketers. The stable women who were healthy and happy before they had an abortion tend to be just as healthy and happy afterward.

Choice doesn’t hurt women. Misinformation does.

Image: Joe Szilagyi

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