When is the best time to make your move and take action? Improve your decision making skills by avoiding the “jump rope effect.”

If you ever played jump rope on the playground as a kid, you know the feeling. Put your hands up and do it with me.

With handles firmly in their grasp, two classmates fan their arms widely as the rope whips around and around.

Thwap. It whips the concrete in steady cadence.

Thwap. From your point of view, the rope is pulsing in and out, passing right by your face.

Thwap. You put your arms in front of you, palms forward, as your hands and upper body lean in and out to mimic the flow of the rope. In, out. In, out.

Thwap. “Next time it comes around, then I’ll go.”

Thwap. Now. Wait, no.

Thwap. Now. Wait, no — this time.

Hesitance is one of the biggest detriments to taking opportunities. Embrace the following points to improve your decision making skills when you find yourself caught up in the “jump rope effect.” (You can put your hands down now).

There is no perfect time

With any opportunity, it often feels like it’s never the right time. If you wait until the absolute perfect conditions come around, you’ll unfortunately be waiting forever. Any way you slice it, there’s going to be risk, and risk can be scary. But life is risk. The fact that you’re alive and functioning today is tribute to the fact that you’ve overcome most of what life has thrown at you.

Sure, there are intelligent ways to assess a “good” time to dive into an opportunity; conversely, you need a little awareness to spot the truly “bad” times as well — like asking for a raise during your boss’s divorce.

The world won’t wait for you

As the rope comes around, that opportunity  — to ask her out on a date, to take that trip  — is right in front of your face. It’s only going to come around so many times, because eventually someone else is going to cut in and willingly jump in your place; or if you really wait too long, everyone’s going to pack it up and head home. By the time it’s overtly safe enough for you, it’s already been safe enough for somebody only slightly braver than you.

Adapt or die

One key source of hesitance comes from fear of inexperience. “I’m not qualified for that job,” or “I can’t dance.” The good news is that you’re much better at figuring things out as you go along than you give yourself credit for. You’re likely going to adapt, and you probably aren’t going to die.

Everyone — even the people who seem like they have their shit together — is making it up and figuring it out as they go along. And even if you do fail, the great news is that most mistakes are reversible. Fail better by learning and trying again, whether it’s that same opportunity or another. Iterate, learn, repeat. Your decision making skills (and life skills) will be sharp in no time.

Nothing is going to happen until you decide to jump in, so hop to it.

Follow Garth on Twitter @garthinkingcap

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ColumnMarch has been madness when it comes to attacks on reproductive freedom—three states are ignoring the constitution and passing restrictive abortion bans. 

Looking at the political landscape, it’s clear that since I wrote a recap of the attacks on choice exactly two years ago, our ability to make decisions about our bodies and the course of our lives is still on the table. As individual states one-up each other passing over-the-top, unconstitutional bans, Planned Parenthood leader Cecile Richards is concerned that Roe v. Wade may be heading back to the Supreme Court.

In some states, the barriers to access would, essentially, make abortion illegal for anyone lacking the resources to travel, or in some cases pay out-of-pocket for a totally 100 percent legal medical procedure covered by most insurance policies. The fact that a woman may not have the resources to cross state lines but is expected to figure out how to access the prenatal care necessary to have a healthy pregnancy, let alone raise an actual child, doesn’t seem to be part of the conversation in the states where our rights are in the most danger. The top three offenders this month are North Dakota, Virginia and Arkansas.

Let’s start in North Dakota—a state with just one clinic offering abortion services. This month, Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed a bill that, if it goes into effect August 1, would make abortion illegal six weeks after conception. No matter what. Rape? Incest? Not Jack’s problem. He also signed into law two more measures: one that would ban abortions based on genetic defects such as Down syndrome and another requiring any doctor who performs abortions to be a physician with hospital-admitting privileges.

While it might be the least headline-grabbing, it’s the last of the laws that poses the most immediate threat to the women of North Dakota. Here’s why: The six-week ban will be tied up in court for a long time because it undermines the constitutional protections in Roe v. Wade—which guarantees the right to first-trimester abortion services. The even more radical “personhood” amendment, which could ban all abortions if voters approve it on the November 2014 ballot, will face similar legal challenges if it becomes law.

This is by design. Dalrymple doesn’t expect these laws to sail through. In the long term, they’re debates designed to get Roe v. Wade back to the Supreme Court. In the short term, they are red herrings for the real attack: Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers: TRAP laws. These are the laws requiring anyone performing an abortion to be a physician with hospital-admitting privileges. And this law could close the one clinic in North Dakota.

This popular anti-choice tactic is sold to the public as a concern for women’s safety. But this isn’t about keeping women safe. Women’s health clinics are perfectly capable of providing women with safe abortions, and surgical abortion is actually one of the safest types of medical procedures. Complications from having a first-trimester aspiration abortion are considerably less frequent and less serious than those associated with giving birth. Early medical abortion (using medications to end a pregnancy) has a similar safety profile.

In reality, TRAP laws do just what the name implies: They trap clinics by making it illegal for medical professionals to do their jobs. In Fargo, where the Red River Women’s Clinic is located, at least one of the two local hospitals won’t offer those privileges because the quality of care at the clinic is so high that the clinic doesn’t need them, according to RH Reality Check. I get it, but why not step in and offer the privileges to save the clinic from this attack?

The state’s new Democratic US Senator, Heidi Heitkamp, has been a bit cagey about her stance on abortion. While she has said she is against public funding, she hasn’t said much else and doesn’t have a voting record on the issue. Email Senator Heitkamp and let her know that these restrictions are unacceptable and unconstitutional. A recent email to her supporters asks for donations to fight Karl Rove’s efforts to keep three other women out of office. She says she wants strong women in the government, so encourage her to be strong and fight these bans.

In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell is looking to limit access to abortion via health insurance. He introduced an amendment to the state’s health insurance exchange implementation bill that would prevent insurance plans in the new health exchange from covering abortion. While similar bills introduced in other states would allow a woman to buy a policy rider for abortion coverage, McDonnell’s doesn’t make that inclusion.

NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia estimates that this ban will affect the approximately  50,000 women in Virginia who will be using the state-based health benefits exchange. As in North Dakota, this ban would limit access, primarily, to lower income women. Most private insurance covers abortion services. McDonnell, on his monthly call-in to Washington’s WTOP Radio, said this amendment is simply a restatement an existing federal law — the Hyde Amendment — that prohibits use of public funds for abortion, and also a restatement of existing state law. This amendment is dangerous because, as McDonnell himself said, it provides the language to apply to federal exchanges as well.

In Arkansas, the Republican-controlled House and Senate decided they know better than their women constituents, Gov. Mike Beebe and the Supreme Court when they approved an unconstitutional bill to ban abortions after 12 weeks. The Republican-controlled Senate passed The Arkansas Human Heartbeat Protection Act 26-8. We all started hearing about Heartbeat Bills a few years back when, in Ohio, a fetus was called to testify via ultrasound. To make sure you can hear that beat, the Arkansas bill would also require women to undergo a medically unnecessary, invasive vaginal ultrasound. Beebe vetoed the bill saying it, “blatantly contradicts the United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court.” Which it does. As does the six-week bill in North Dakota.

These guys aren’t stupid. They know this. So why are they fighting to get these bills passed in their states? Because, since 1992, they can. Planned Parenthood v. Casey upheld a woman’s right to have an abortion, but some shockingly vague language opened the door for all of what we are seeing today. The Court said the government may seek to discourage women from having abortions by requiring waiting periods and other efforts—as long as these restrictions do not pose an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to an abortion. Undue burden was left undefined.

Is it an undue burden to be forced to have a medically unnecessary trans-vaginal ultrasound? To have to travel hundreds of miles for an abortion, only to be told you have to come back in 72 hours because of a waiting period? What about to be forced to pay for a procedure that should be, legally, covered by health insurance?  Yes, I think those are undue burdens.

This death by a thousand cuts approach isn’t new. Republicans have applied it to voting rights, civil rights, gay rights and other social issues for decades. Public opinion on social issues is changing, and the party can’t win national elections with its throwback views. So Republicans attack issues like abortion and gay marriage piece by piece, state by state. But this isn’t just a fight against abortion; it’s a fight against equality. This is a relatively small number of people—with deep pockets and loud voices—who fear that ensuring the freedom of choice to everyone will rob them of their power. And that would be the best possible outcome.  

Image: alexandralee

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ColumnWhy eating locally isn’t just smart. It’s the socially just thing to do.

We all know the benefits of locavorism: eat food that comes from close to where you live and you not only support the local economy, but you have better access to the people that produce your food.

But unfortunately, the infrastructure of growing local food hasn’t necessarily caught up with the increase in demand and awareness, and while the popularity of farmers markets may be on the rise, that doesn’t mean that the lives of farmers are getting any easier.

An NPR story last week highlighted the difficulties that some of these small-scale, independent farmers face. Farming in Illinois, Amy Cloud and her husband produce all those things we crave to put in our weekend farmers market basket: kale, broccoli, onions, Swiss chard. But while we’re busy sauteing a luxurious assortment of greens for dinner and pondering what organic, artisan cheese to pair with it, the Clouds are working hard to simple scrape by, living off a combined annual income of $25,000 – $30,000.

As Cloud told NPR, “Both my husband and I live off of an income that any normal person would consider to be just enough for one person, certainly not for a whole couple. We don’t have health insurance.”

Why does this discrepancy still exist and how do we fix it?

That is a complicated question with a multifaceted answer, but let’s start with this simple fact: we live in a globalized system where processed food and profit margins reign, no matter the cost to the environment, the local economy or an individual’s health. This is a world of Monsantos, and no matter where you turn, it’s hard – even impossible – to live a lifestyle where you are 100 percent removed from the powers of big agribusiness.

No matter how conscious we are, we consume more and more processed foods and chemicals, from high fructose corn syrup to residual pesticides. On the health side, food companies are fully aware of the effects that this has, but again, profits win out over public health. As former Executive Vice President at Kraft Foods stated in a New York Times Op-ed: “… executives who run these companies like to say they don’t create demand, they try only to satisfy it. “We’re just giving people what they want. We’re not putting a gun to their heads,” the refrain goes.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the years, relentless efforts were made to increase the number of “eating occasions” people indulged in and the amount of food they consumed at each.

To think that we have a certain level of choice when we head to the grocery store is to live in a dream world; we are inundated with products that are meant to create an addiction, and many of those products require cheaply produced ingredients like corn. Corporate agribusiness has a tight grip on the food system, and in it, there’s certainly no room for the independent farmer.

To exist in a world where independent farming can succeed, we have to therefore think about an entire restructuring of the system, from individual consumer habits, to how grocery stores operate to the transportation of goods, and that’s why it’s going to take more than just expanding farmers markets across the country. The solution is a combination of changing personal habits and change that comes from the top down. We need a system that better supports independent agriculture; one that aims to protect food culture instead of slowly losing it.

We can all vote with our forks, but to do so, we have to really do it, not just some of the time. “Buy local” shouldn’t just be a mantra for your apples and kale, it should be a mantra for everything. Until we as consumers start really demanding locally produced goods from independent sources, we won’t get the amount of government support that we need to ensure that these products continue to exist on the shelves, and we will continue to go down a path where we have less and less say over what we are eating.

There are many things that are part of our everyday consumption habits that are difficult to change. (If you find a local farmer in North America growing coffee beans, please tell me about it.) But there’s a lot that we can change, and if we are in an economic position to shop locally, we have the obligation to do so. Not just for our own health, but for the health of our local economies and our neighbors.

If we want to keep eating freshly grown kale, we better do something to ensure that the farmers down the road can continue to grow it, and that starts with buying from them every single time. Not just once a week, but changing our shopping habits so that we really are consuming locally every chance that we get. Only when we start showing that we are serious about our demands will industry follow suit. Support local not because it’s a trend, but because it’s the socially just thing to do.

This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’ weekly column at EcoSalon: Foodie Underground, an exploration of what’s new and different in the underground movement, and how we make the topic of good food more accessible to everyone. More musings on the topic can be found at www.foodieunderground.com.

Image: ianmalcm

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Women who are having abortions and placing their children for adoption aren’t who we think they are. They’re mothers.

In a recent Slate article, The Mother Majority, Lauren Sandler recounted her pregnancy scare and how she spent several agonizing days contemplating abortion. Sandler is married and has one child, but did not want to parent further. She considered her family of three “complete.” After her fears turned out to be groundless, she began to wonder how many other women were in the same situation. It turns out a lot. 

Her article explores the high numbers of women with children who have sought abortions. On the other side of the equation, the number of women who already have children who placed subsequent children for adoption is high as well. So what’s happening?

Mothers Declining to Parent More Children
As a mother, Sandler thought she was alone in contemplating abortion, but when she started to ask around, she discovered the opposite was true. She found that The Guttmacher Institute reported in 2008, 61 percent of women who terminated a pregnancy in the U.S. already had at least one child. The National Abortion Federation told Sandler that every year since 2008, 72 percent of women seeking to terminate a pregnancy were already mothers.

Sandler’s story mirrors similar adoption statistics. Betsy Zdonek, a caseworker at Adoption Associates with 30 years of experience in the adoption field confirmed that “the average birthmother we work with is 23 and has two children.” Although there are no official studies that focus on the demographic of mothers giving their children up for adoption, Zdonek said that more than half of their birthmothers already had children. A call to the National Council for Adoption echoed Zdonek’s experience. Megan Lindsey confirmed that there were no national studies or numbers compiled specifically about mothers (citing privacy issues), but said that nationwide, agencies were seeing a majority of birthmothers in their twenties and older with previous children. These conversations were purely anecdotal, but both women (on a local and national level) acknowledged this trend.

Why Don’t Women Want More Children?
One of Sandler’s reasons, and the main reason many mothers cite is the desire to protect the child(ren) they already have. Whether that means financially or emotionally, there are numerous obstacles for families, and mothers in particular. The economy is not the sole culprit, but it has had an undeniable impact on families in our country and others.

In early 2011, The Daily Mail reported that almost two-thirds of parents in the UK say they are too poor to have a second child, and statistics show that the average size of a British family is shrinking. Fox News and Gallup also report that American families are growing smaller and that cost is a major factor. Fox claims that as of 2010, it costs $226,920 to raise one child to the age of eighteen.

Many will say that our materialistic society is to blame because too many parents feel the need to buy their children gadgets and over-priced designer clothing, but mothers like Nicole Knepper (in an interview on Fox News) contend that many families are teetering on the brink of disaster just trying to make ends meet and pay for everyday costs of housing, food, transportation and education. Knepper’s family struggles to make ends meet on a single salary (she has been looking for work for a year) with a special needs child who requires monthly medication paid for out of the Knepper’s pocket. For her family, and many others, the addition of one more child could certainly be catastrophic.

Financial Uncertainty + Outsourcing Jobs + Poor Government Policies = An Unsupportive Nation
On the surface, our society pays lip service to championing mothers and supporting families, but underneath the pink Hallmark hearts and sentiment, America is extremely ineffective in supporting both mothers or families. Numerous studies, the current business environment and our nation’s own policies discourage having children.

Although a small percentage of progressive, high-profile companies make it onto various “Best Places to Work” and mother’s magazines’ employers lists, the reality is that the vast majority of companies in this country (many of them struggling small businesses), are offering fewer and fewer full-time jobs with benefits and are instead offering part-time or contract jobs to avoid the high cost of health care, employment taxes and retirement benefits.

Compensation is falling while the cost of living continues to rise. Even for those who have employer-supplied health care, out of pocket costs are increasing. For contractors who have no benefits, maternity leave and the cost of giving birth is prohibitive, especially since many would certainly be replaced if they went on maternity leave, as there is no legal obligation for the employer to hold their job. During this recession more men than women lost their jobs. As a result, many women are the sole financial support for many families and cannot take either an unpaid maternity leave, risk losing their jobs, or simply add another person to an already struggling family situation.

Despite our slow economic recovery, U.S. companies are recording financial gains, as they wring every bit of productivity out of American workers, resulting in longer days and more hours for no more, and sometimes less, pay. Many are forced to work even longer hours than many day cares are open or attempt to adjust their work schedules accordingly which could jeopardize their job security. While Americans work many more hours than their European counterparts, we also receive far less time off and have no mandatory sick leave or vacation time.

The Economist’s 2011 Women’s Economic Opportunity report spotlighted that out of 113 countries studied, only the United States and Australia do not offer paid maternity benefits (although Australia began offering these benefits in January of this year). The report also stated that globally, women make 75% less than men. Many countries (including the U.S.) pass adequate equality laws, but simply do not enforce them. In the US, women’s compensation is gaining some ground, but working mothers make less, and the more children you have, the more it hurts your career. Currently women make up half the U.S. workforce, yet there are still many more roadblocks than benefits to working and having children.

Who Knows Best How Tough it is to be a Parent?
Even outside these external factors, mothers declining to parent more children is not hard to understand. Who knows better how hard it is to be a parent than someone who has already done it? Zdonek agrees, saying that birthmothers with children are the ones who make adoption plans, while the percentage of teen mothers who do so are much smaller.

Even though many parents will say that parenting is rewarding and brings them happiness, study after study refutes this, claiming that having children doesn’t make parents happy and they are much more stressed than people without children. The New York Times’ Lisa Belkin examines a study claiming that having children causes more misery than joy, and New York magazine’s Jennifer Senior goes further, citing several studies that show how children are detrimental to marriage, and the more of them there are, the worse it is in All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting.

“As a rule, most studies show that mothers are less happy than fathers, that single parents are less happy still, that babies and toddlers are the hardest, and that each successive child produces diminishing returns.”

Although many would say single parenthood is more accepted than in the past, studies show that it is still frowned upon. Socially and financially, it is the hardest parenting role out there. The 2011 U.S. Census data shows that 31.6 percent of single parent households headed by women fell below the poverty line as opposed to 6.2 percent of married couples and 15.8 percent of single fathers. A 2011 Economist report estimated that in 2008 child care costs equaled 30 percent of a dual income family’s net income (obviously it would be more than that for a single income home). The report concluded that governments should focus on offering affordable child care and other services to single parents to encourage them to work (rather than collect unemployment or welfare benefits).

And, as our planet’s population passes the 7 billion mark, society is beginning to frown on bigger families for environmental reasons.

Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don’t, and Just Damned No Matter What
Many believe that if you make your bed and have sex in it, you should bear the child that might come with it. But who does bear the consequences? According to Epigee Women’s Health, even perfect birth control users can “expect more than one unplanned pregnancy in her lifetime.” USA Today reports that at least 4 in 10 pregnancies in every state are unplanned, including pregnancies within long-term relationships and marriages. (This report does not address what percentage of unplanned pregnancies are attributed to women who already have children.)

What If It’s Not a Necessity, But a Choice?
Faced with financial constraints, the rising cost of living, an uncertain work environment, family unfriendly government and business policies and parental stress, mothers are making difficult decisions out of necessity, but also out of choice. Sandler discussed the distinction between a mother choosing an abortion or adoption out of desperation, and choosing not to parent out of preference. Gloria Feldt, former Planned Parenthood Federation of America president told Sandler, “The less in control of a woman’s life she is, the more the public supports her right to make that choice. The more [people perceive] she is in control of her life, saying this is the life I choose, the less people support it.”

Sandler’s story drew heavy criticism over her assertion that she would choose abortion (if it had come to that) rather than parent another child. In 2009, USA Today profiled another mother, Renee, who was solely supporting three teenage children when she found herself pregnant again. She chose to have her child and place her for adoption. Her story also drew widespread criticism with people wondering why a mother would not want to parent additional children.

Angela*, a single mother who asked that her name not be used, has one daughter from a previous relationship that she is parenting alone. It was a struggle, but Angela was able to provide for herself and her daughter without any public assistance. When her birth control failed and she found herself pregnant again, she determined that she did not want to have another child. “I had parented my daughter and I knew what I was in for. I did not want to do that again.” Additionally, she did not want to be bound to a man she no longer had a relationship with.

Angela had an abortion and knows it was the right choice for her and her daughter.

“This is one issue that I feel very passionate about, that women have the choice and the accessibility to have an abortion.”

Angela acknowledges that some of her friends don’t understand her decision, but she has no regrets. She has built a thriving business, has a close bond with her daughter and is providing for her family without government assistance – a success story that would not have happened had she brought another child into the world.

Image: Kevin Murphy, Keoni Cabral, Karin Dalziel, James Cridland

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ColumnWhere celebrity becomes conscious.

Hollywood is a land of contradictions. An extra serving of ice cream can send people into hysterics while no one bats an eyelash at a starlet on her fifth arrest. But when it comes to abortion politics in film, everyone generally joins together to dive under high-end Egyptian cotton sheets, refusing to come out until someone yells “big opening weekend.” Even torture porn flicks such as Saw can cause less controversy than a pimpled teenager walking inside an abortion clinic.

While the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize abortion occurred in 1973, the debate has continued to rage. Take issues near and dear to people, nicely steeped in the American zeitgeist, and you have a political fire starter no one wants to touch. With such impassioned supporters on both sides, you would think Hollywood would have been quick to carry over the argument on film. Controversy breeds ticket sales, after all. Right?

In a word: No. Abortion in cinema has become as popular as discussing abortion at a family reunion. No one wants to touch the subject for fear of reprisal. When films and television shows do deal with abortion, they generally employ the following ten rules of portrayal. While some of these rules walk the thin gray line, all seem determined to leave you confused and uncertain about the state of abortion politics in America.

If your character goes through with her abortion, be prepared to fight the studio to keep it in.

Dirty Dancing, 1987’s wildly popular tribute to 1963 Catskill dance moves, reminds us that abortion was once completely illegal in America. Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes) is forsaken by her bad-guy boyfriend and will lose her ability to earn a living as a dancer. She almost dies after seeking a back-alley abortion, and is saved by kindly Dr. Houseman (Jerry Orbach).

Eleanor Bergstein wrote the script for Dirty Dancing. The Daily Beast reports that when the studio saw the final version, they urged Bergstein and director Emile Ardolino to edit out all references to the abortion. As Bergstein tells The Daily Beast, “I explained that it was integral to the plot…and if we cut that out, the rest of the story would collapse. So we kept it in.” According to Bergstein, the lesson is clear. As she further expounds, “What movies are saying now is that if you are of fine moral fiber, you make the opposite decision and decide to have the baby. And everything turns out beautifully. The girls never end up in a shelter, as girls in real life often do.”

If your character is thinking about abortion, she will likely back out of it or experience an unfortunate miscarriage.

Several television shows have addressed the issue accordingly. The original Beverly Hills: 90210 (1990-2000) explored abortion when brainy Andrea became impregnated by her boyfriend, Jesse. Jesse breaks up with Andrea over the decision, only to realize the error of his judgmental ways. In the meantime, Andrea has decided to back out of the abortion. Happiness reigns. No judgment!

Sex and the City (1998-2004) similarly dealt with abortion a decade later. Miranda finds herself pregnant by her sometimes boyfriend, Steve. She initially chooses abortion, but backs out when confronted with the realization that, at aged 36, this may be her last chance at motherhood. While this episode explored the myriad issues surrounding abortion, it inevitably gave us a main heroine, Carrie Bradshaw, who has admitted to having an abortion. Further, Carrie truthfully acknowledges the uncomfortable feelings she still has over the procedure.

And if your character is still undecided? She can always fall back on the conveniently-timed miscarriage. In Party of Five (1994-2000), teenager Julia (Neve Campbell) chooses abortion, backs out, chooses it again, and then succumbs to a miscarriage.

If your character decides to go through with an abortion on a TV show, make sure it is on premium cable.

Abortion issues on the small screen almost always coincide with a premium cable bill. We’ve already mentioned HBO’s Sex and the City treatment of the issue. The same network also gave us Claire Fisher’s procedure on Six Feet Under (2001-2005), as well as with the HBO produced movie If These Walls Could Talk (1996), which looked at three women dealing with abortion over a span of forty years.

But abortion issues on network television? Keep looking. In 1972, Bea Arthur’s Maude decided to have an abortion after becoming pregnant at age 47. This episode of Maude, which was on CBS, is one of the only times where a character on network TV actually went through with an abortion.

European producers or financiers are more likely to back a film with an abortion plot line.

The Yellow Handkerchief (2008), written by Erin Dignam, features an abortion plot line. William Hurt is a recently released convict who went to jail after being incited into a criminal rage by the revelation that ex-wife Maria Bello has an abortion. As Dignam has said, finding financing for the film was extremely hard. Eventually the film was produced by Europeans, Arthur Cohn and Lillian Birnbaum. According to Digman, “The producers backed me. I’m sure the fact that they are European helped.”

Your character should be played by Laura Dern.

If you want to discuss abortion in the most satirical way possible, cast Laura Dern. Dern wickedly plays the titular character in Citizen Ruth (1996), the worst possible candidate for motherhood. Ruth is a stupid, often inebriated drug addict who already has lost custody of her four children. When she is arrested, the judge offers to lighten her sentence if she has an abortion. Pro-life and pro-choice sides are inflamed, nonsense and hilarity ensues. It’s rather like watching political debates on abortion today.

To avoid social moralizing in 1982, your unwed pregnant character must have the abortion.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) had Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Stacy Hamilton getting an abortion after an ill-fated hookup in a pool shed. The procedure was done quickly and without judgment, aside from the ire heaped on her hookup’s head for bailing out on Stacy.

To avoid social moralizing today, your unwed pregnant character must not have the abortion.

In 2007’s Juno, teen Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) considers an abortion and even visits an abortion clinic. But she backs out after a classmate points out her unwanted baby already has fingernails. Also in 2007, Knocked Up’s Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is an ambitious, career-oriented young woman who gets pregnant after a one night stand with a slacker. She doesn’t even consider abortion as a viable option. Of course, neither film would have had a story if they had. In the meantime, both films were appropriated by the pro-life movement as a testament to the right to life. But there’s also the point to be made that both heroines were merely exercising their right to choose not to have an abortion.

If your character has an abortion, make sure she is impregnated by a really bad guy.

In The Godfather: Part II (1974), Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton) aborts a male heir to the Corleone crime family. Penny Johnsons’ aforementioned lover in Dirty Dancing is a shady rich boy who is sleeping with wealthy married women. In The Cider House Rules (1999), Rose Rose (Erykah Badu) is raped by her father. Who she then murders. Because he’s a really bad guy.

After her abortion, your character will likely pay for her choice in some negative way.

The Cider House Rules walks a fine line of moralizing about abortion rights. Michael Caine’s Dr. Larch is a charitable abortionist in 1940s Maine who treats women while taking in their unwanted children. He ends up dead. Tobey Maquire plays Homer Wells, his uncertain protégé, himself an unwanted child.

Homer’s ambiguity over abortion is challenged by two women. Charlize Theron is Candy Kendall, whose abortion is seemingly consequence-free until her boyfriend turns up from war paralyzed from the waist down. Candy is now likely permanently childless. Coupled with the grim fate of Rose, who wins in any of these scenarios? No one. Even Homer Wells, who returns home to Maine to take up where Dr. Larch left off, is left to provide medical care to women in desperate situations in a barren, frozen landscape with a young Paz de la Huerta making eyes at him over the staircase.

And finally, if your character is going to have the first legal abortion on television, make sure the aborted fetus “reappears [decades later] fully grown after having been miraculously saved by the unscrupulous doctor who had performed the initial procedure.”

In 1973, All My Children’s Erica Kane had the first legal abortion on television. Which one would think is a landmark event, no? Until said fetus, now fully grown, showed up year later in Pine Valley. Just this April, ABC canceled All My Children after decades on the air. Tough break, fetus. Welcome to show business.

This is the latest installment in Katherine Butler’s column, Shade Grown Hollywood, where celebrity becomes conscious. “Shade grown” refers literally to shade grown coffee, a farming method that “incorporates principles of natural ecology to promote natural ecological relationships.” Shade Grown is our sustainable twist on Hollywood.

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More people are choosing to remain childfree.

My friend, Katherine, has always been sure that she wanted a house full of children; she’s just one of those people who falls into motherhood easily and happily. Another friend, Anna, does not want to have children. I walk the middle line, with the mother role being something I’m still learning to wear comfortably.

It’s a cliche by now that those with children encourage, pressure, even browbeat all the misguided people who claim to care less about having children. But why should this be so?

Taking On Parenthood

Parenthood is a major life change and it requires a huge emotional, financial and lifestyle investment for the rest of your years. How can we blame anyone who honestly assesses their hopes and dreams and decides that being a parent is not part of them? What our society should do is encourage and support those who do want children, and applaud those who realize that they don’t. Pushing people to take on such a huge unwanted responsibility can only spell misery for everyone.

Many people call the childfree choice selfish. Selfish, to me, would be having children and then always placing your needs and desires above theirs, resenting them for demanding time, money and energy you don’t want to give, and making them feel unwanted. Realizing that you don’t want to go down this path is simply being self-aware of your mental, spiritual and financial demands, and knowing that a child simply doesn’t fit.

If You Don’t Want to Be a Parent, You Can’t Be a Good One

I recently read a comment by a woman who spelled out all the reasons she chose not to have children and why she didn’t want to be a parent. She then added that she really resented it when she told people this and they assumed that she would be a poor parent. They’re right. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that you don’t want to invest the time, emotion, or money it takes to be a parent, and then say that, nevertheless, you would be a great parent.

I don’t choose to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into attending law school, spend hours studying kitchen plumbing or log enough airtime to become a pilot so similarly, why would I force anyone to become a parent? While no parent is perfect, the baseline requirement is wanting to be one.

The Great Divide

While I support a person’s right not to have children, I also don’t want to be glared at in restaurants, resented in the workplace, and disparaged because I chose to have children. Similarly, childfree adults also don’t want to be discriminated against for their choices.

The family landscape is changing, and the point is choice. The number of women not having children is rising whether society chooses to accept it or not. We can let this issue drive a wedge between parents and non-parents, or we can see it as a way to improve our society’s health. Is it such a bad thing to promote fewer families with children, and stronger family units? To have individuals who lead better, more contented lives because they are encouraged to feel proud of their chosen lifestyle?

Image: kevindooley

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Female soldiers serving overseas are denied their legal right to choice.

There isn’t a much more intrusive and demanding employer than the United States Military. If you enlist, you give up a great deal of personal freedom and accept the strong likelihood of being placed in harm’s way. In return, you receive many benefits: the honor of serving your country, superb on-the-job training, job security and reportedly the best health care benefits in the country. But it may shock you to learn that service women don’t have the same access to legal reproductive healthcare that their civilian counterparts enjoy.

The trouble began with the passage of the Hyde Amendment in 1976, which ensures that federal money is not used to fund abortions – on military bases, in Planned Parenthood facilities or anyplace else.

Anti-choice politicians and activists have spent a lot of time over the last few months making sure that there’s confusion about how government dollars are used to fund abortions. Here’s the quick answer: they’re not. See Hyde.

Think about what this means for an American service woman overseas.

Female soldiers stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and other countries where abortion is illegal have to get special, unpaid leaves of absence and – using their own money – fly to a country where it is legal to get an abortion. Because of Hyde, they can’t get one on base.

Other than cases in which the life or health of the woman is in immediate danger, female soldiers cannot get an abortion – a legal medical procedure in the country they are serving and risking their lives for – on a military base, where they are supposed to receive health care because said health care is government-sponsored. Talk about a Catch-22.

For many years, servicewomen and military wives were able to use their own funds to access abortion care on military facilities overseas. In 1988, an internal Department of Defense memo took away that right. In 1993, President Clinton signed an Executive Order lifting the ban, but then in 1995, an anti-choice Congress passed a law reimposing it. And here we are.

“Abortion is essentially illegal on base and it puts servicewomen into a pre-Roe situation: If you have money, if you know who to ask and if your commander lets you leave the base, you have a choice. If not, you don’t,” says Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, staff attorney at the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.

On a foreign military base, there’s usually a treaty or agreement with the host country and stipulating rules and regulations apply. Saudi Arabia is the best example. Servicewomen there are allowed to drive on base, but can’t drive in the rest of the country. The same is true with veils, which they must wear if they leave the base.

Given these examples, it would seem that even if abortion is illegal in the host country, U.S. laws would apply on base. But common sense doesn’t apply and the consequences are dire.

“I heard a story about a soldier was stationed in the Philippines. His wife was pregnant and the baby had fatal problems. The closest place to go to terminate the pregnancy was Japan, but they couldn’t afford the trip. She was forced to carry the pregnancy to term,” says Kolbi-Molinas.

People in the military, she explains, do have fewer privacy rights than the rest of us, and you’d need your commander’s permission to leave the base for any reason, including medical procedures. What goes too far is that the facilities ban requires disclosure to the officer, sometimes to the whole unit. There are serious repercussions. Unsurprisingly, a woman leaving active duty to get an abortion isn’t good for a unit’s cohesion, and has shown to be damaging to women’s military careers.

According to the ACLU, more than 365,000 women presently serve in the military. If, while they are deployed, they happen to get pregnant – either because they had consensual sex and the birth control failed or they are raped – they are unable to do anything about it. And rape isn’t a small issue. According to a 2003 study of female veterans, 30 percent were raped or suffered a rape attempt during their military service. Uncle Sam, I’ll do the math: thirty percent of 365,000 is more than 109,000 women.

And abortion isn’t the only reproductive health service that is compromised for active servicewomen. “During the first Gulf War, I heard about a soldier in Kuwait who was having issues with her IUD. None of the doctors she had access to there had a speculum, so they had to use spoons,” says Kolbi-Molinas.

Their lives are on the line for ours, and we can’t do better than spoons?

The first way to protect servicewomen on our bases is to ensure that full reproductive health services are legal, just as they are at home – for now. If the right to choose is compromised or lost in the States, active duty women don’t stand a chance.

On February 18th, the House passed H.R. 3 and voted to cut off all funding to Planned Parenthood. If it passes the Senate we’re all in a lot of trouble. Far more than an abortion provider, Planned Parenthood offers STI testing, HIV testing, cancer screenings and access to birth control to women who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

As Candace Straight, co-chair of the Republican Majority for Choice, wrote: “Beyond the title’s hypocritical and not-so-subtle taxation, H.R. 3 would disadvantage an entire spectrum of women and families. From the brave women serving in our military overseas to federal employees and the poorest of our citizens, this bill directly aims to restrict access for those in need.”

See where your Senators stand and then contact them voicing your support or disgust, depending. And, if you can, float a little money at Planned Parenthood – the organization really is on the frontline protecting reproductive freedom and it needs all the help it can get right now.

In honor of International Women’s Day, let’s extend the laws of this land to our courageous women in uniform, whether they’re standing on its soil or not.

Image: Familymwr

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