#destigmatize abortion

[viralnews-1]

Call Jane Uses Humour to Destigmatize Abortion Rights

Call Jane Uses Humour to Destigmatize Abortion Rights

Elizabeth Banks says in a promotional interview for Call Jane, “as long as there are pregnant people, there will be people that don’t want to be pregnant, and this film reminds us that their safety matters.” Banks, along with her dedicated co-stars Sigourney Weaver, Grace Edwards and Wunmi Mosaku command your attention in director Phyllis Nagy’s feature debut. This absorbing story of feminist…

[agro-carnist]

Things that will help the dog and cat overpopulation crisis more than "adopt don't shop":

Helping the poor and homeless

Better education on breeds and what animal fits a home the best

Spay aborts

Stricter regulations on breeding/support of ethical breeders

Better education on designer breeds

Ending the stigma of rehoming/surrendering pets

Better spay/neuter resources

Culling of feral dog and cat populations

Encouraging adoption of older animals/showing older animals make just as good of pets as puppies/kittens and often better for certain homes

Destigmatizing euthanasia in cases outside of just for animals actively dying

Holding shelters and rescues to better standards to stop discriminating against particular people or home situations

[sordidamok]

The argument is that Biden should have used the word "abortion" to destigmatize it. I get that, and I agree, but as long as he keeps saying words like "I will restore women's right to choose", I'll let it slide.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Eliza Mondegreen

Published: Aug 4, 2023

This week, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) announced that it was setting out on the long road back to plausible deniability. 

At a meeting this week, all 16 AAP board members voted to reaffirm the organisation’s 2018 guidelines on how paediatricians should support “transgender and gender-diverse children and adolescents” — before agreeing that a systematic review of the evidence supporting youth gender transition was in order. 

The academy’s current guidelines claim puberty blockers are “reversible” (the UK’s National Health Service now warns that “little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria”). On the subject of “surgical affirmation” — an Orwellian term if ever there was one — the AAP advises that adolescents may undergo interventions to amputate breasts or genitalia on a case-by-case basis. The guidelines also take social transition — a psychosocial intervention in which a child’s entire social circle is enlisted in a conspiracy to lie to them about their sex — without due seriousness, despite evidence suggesting that social transition makes it harder for children to change their minds and accept their bodies. 

According to the New York Times, Mark Del Monte, the chief executive of the AAP, said: “the board has confidence that the existing evidence is such that the current policy is appropriate. At the same time, the board recognized that additional detail would be helpful here.” This is a change of tune from AAP leadership, which has spent years resisting calls from within its own ranks for just such a review, going to extraordinary lengths to shut down dissent. 

But this is how organisations start to walk back from a medical scandal. Quietly, slowly — ideally so quietly and so slowly that no one notices they’ve retreated from shaky to solid ground at all.  

First, they redefine “gender-affirming care” to deemphasise controversial hormonal and surgical interventions. Moira Szilagyi, then-President of the AAP, tried this move out last year, when she insisted that “destigmatizing gender variance and promoting a child’s self-worth” is “what it means to ‘affirm’ a child or teen”. (Funny that the Academy’s guidelines spilt so much ink on “medical affirmation”, then, while demonising watchful waiting.) On social media, the AAP suggested that gender-affirming care has “never been about pushing medicines or surgery”. We’ve also seen efforts elsewhere to broaden the umbrella of gender-affirming care to the point of meaninglessness, such that taking birth control pills, getting an abortion, and telling little girls it’s okay to wear dresses are all gender-affirming care now. Who knew?

Then they’ll claim that this was all “gender-affirming care” ever meant all along. Who was talking about hormones and surgeries? Who was advocating a massive medical experiment in suppressing pubescent development? Medical professional associations like the American Academy of Pediatrics will magically rediscover everything they used to know about child and adolescent development. They will pretend they never overlooked these things. It’ll just be years too late for kids who transitioned under their guidance. 

Medical scandals don’t tend to end with reckonings. They tend to end with a mass forgetting: with amnesia, not accountability for those who caused harm — no matter how righteous their intentions.

==

Given they gaslit us into this medical scandal through language games, it makes sense they'll gaslight themselves out the same way.

They'll "forget" that they deleted and rewrote their child surgical practices, including hysterectomies and vaginoplasties. They'll "forget" that they vilified everyone who found these medical experiments appalling. Their CEOs and directors will quietly leave with large departure payouts, and the institutions will pretend they were never doing "life saving treatments."

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right." -- George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

[anamericangirl]

I think it’s important to distinguish between pro-choicers and pro-abortionists, and I say this as someone who is pro-life for the most part. But I have friends who are pro-choice and I might disagree with them on the abortion issue somewhat, but it’s the pro-abortion crowd that are the crazy ones. They’re the ones glorifying abortion, threatening to rape women who disagree with them and just being extremely toxic in general. Whereas the pro-choice crowd just thinks the woman should have the right to choose whether or not to get an abortion. Wouldn’t you agree?

I used to agree and would be careful to make the distinction but honestly I don't think there is much of a distinction anymore. It's been a long time since I've come across anyone who identifies as pro-choice that does not openly support abortion and our pro-choice culture has definitely made a shift towards being more pro-abortion than pro-choice and there is a widespread trend among pro-choicers to destigmatize abortion and stop seeing it as a negative in any way.

Even if there are still people out there that will say "well, I don't like abortion, but..." I think pro-choice and pro-abortion are pretty much synonymous these days and only going further in that direction.

And anyone who isn't pro-abortion shouldn't be pro-choice anyway.

[beardedmrbean]

Weird question but I figured you would know better than most. Some states had trigger laws that kicked into effect almost right after the Supreme Court made their decision. Are these states predominantly populated by voters who agree with abortion limitations? Are these put into place by elected officials? Or is this sort of forced upon people of the state without their approval? I know ads in California make it clear what the position of abortions are… I was wondering if it was the same for other states.

Likely going to be different on a state by state basis as to how they got on the books, I think it was Michigan that had one on the books from 100 years or so ago which is wild because really wasn't much of a thing then.

I could be wrong about that too.

Most of them are going to be laws that the different state legislatures put into play though.

In the red states it's one of those things that people would pledge to do so they could get elected,

even if they're pro choice because it's not like Roe is actually gonna get overturned, this is to make my constituents happy, wait what do you mean it's happened

Also probably quite a few that have been on the books since the initial ruling, much easier to get anti abortion laws put into place back then, even through the 80's you could get the general population to vote on that probably get enough to amend the state constitution in some cases.

Go back to the 80's and see our senile old fart in chief Biden standing against abortion, it was still a partisan issue but less so than now.

So there's a whole bunch of ways they've gotten put into place, I'm guessing when the brief was leaked there were quite a few people in different state governments looking to see what their status would be if Roe went poof probably some surprised by it too.

Not gonna manage to put something like this to the electorate (people) and get the big W, all the work to destigmatize the procedure through the late 80's and 90's have made that next to impossible.

So the more recent ones at least were likely put into place by the elected representatives state senators and such, older ones too possibly but those could have gone to a people vote as well.

___________

I missed this line from you

Are these states predominantly populated by voters who agree with abortion limitations?

Think I covered that pretty well already, but for the sake of clarity.

No, they aren't, probably were at one point but you'll be pretty hard pressed to find somewhere where you could manage over 50% of the popular vote for something like that these days.

It's like marijuana legalization in reverse for that.

_______________________

My brain went all adhd on me so I hope this makes sense scattered random thoughts as they are.

[cult-of-lilith]

Kinktown should have have an amazing and free sexual health clinic that offers STI testing, counseling, and management services as well stuff like interpartner violence intervention programs. And the town should pride itself on a culture of regular and destigmatized testing!

Oh! And what about like those community tool libraries, but instead of hammers and lawnmowers it’s single-use or realistically cleanable kink gear so people can try new stuff?

If you couldn’t tell, I’m horny for public health and infrastructure lol

It's very important to be horny for public health infrastructure! Kink town actually has a completely free fully stocked hospital with doctors who actually listen to you, constant testing, counselling, abortion, and childcare for the milfs. Kinktown is a utopia

[capitalwildcat]

My friend got together w some people and put together a theatre piece in response to the roe v. wade stuff and the first (currently only, but there's time) showing of it happened today.

And i really hope they bring this back and that they're able to bring it more places.

The title is Destigmatized.

And it was a collection of stories from real women who had abortions, or who were sexually assaulted, or who had pregnancy scares, or who deal with some bullshit because of the society we live in and the sexism that still exists

And i think that its a huge thing to do, to gather those stories and talk about them. Because its so easy for people to feel isolated when they're going through that, or they've been taught that it's shameful for them to talk about it.

And like man... I watched the women who went through these things get up on a little community theatre stage. They wrote down some deeply personal shit. And they read it out in a room full of people.

And not to be dramatic, but that was fucking Art.

That was the kind of art that encourages people to think about and talk about their experiences and to realize that these things happen every day. Often to people tou already know.

That was the kind of art that if anyone else in the audience tonight has gone through this shit, now they know they aren't alone.

They donated the proceeds (donations) to planned parenthood.

(Also, a significant number of the contributors are lgbt and/or allies and a lot of pieces used trans inclusive language which was like. God damn. That shit got me right in the heart.)

Anyway community theatre rules

[yessoupy]

"Buying abortion fund merch is both a great way to support abortion funds but also to destigmatize abortions!"

[pearl-sunrise]

I'm pro choice- but I'm also:

pro eliminating financial barriers to parenthood (adequate maternity/paternity leave, living wages to allow for and normalize single wage earner households, widely available and affortable maternity and baby care)

pro examining how abortion can promote eugeneics

pro adoption of unwanted children (making adoption more affordable while still maintaining rigorous background checking procedures, destigmatizing adoption, making mental health support for expectant mothers and children and adoptive families widely available)

pro personal responsibility

pro funding additional studies about women's health, negative impacts of birth control, and negative impacts of abortion

pro normalizing waiting until marriage to engage in physical intimacy

pro child support responsibility beginning at conception

Basically I would love to see a world where the choice is available, but where people aren't forced. I dont think it's morally corrupt for me to say that killing babies is wrong while I still have compassion for those women who made the choice.

Its so complicated- and I am curious to hear the opinions of others. Dreaming of a better world can be a radical act.

[tallmantall]

James Donaldson on Mental Health - Here’s what sociologists want you to know about teen suicide

A new book on youth suicide clusters offers perspective on prevention By Rachel M. Cohen Rachel M. Cohen is a senior reporter for Vox covering social policy. She focuses on housing, schools, homelessness, child care, and abortion rights, and has been reporting on these issues for more than a decade. Between 2000 and 2015 in an affluent, predominately white community in the US, 19 young people died by suicide through what’s known as suicide clusters. These clusters refer to an unusually high rate of suicide for a community over a short period of time, often at least two deaths and one suicide attempt, or three deaths. Suicide clusters are an extreme example of youth mental health struggles — an issue that’s been getting more attention since the pandemic and one that’s at the center of an increasingly charged national conversation around social media and phones. Anna Mueller, a sociologist at Indiana University Bloomington, and Seth Abrutyn, a sociologist at the University of British Columbia, recently published Life Under Pressure: The Social Roots of Youth Suicide and What to Do About Them, which explores why these clusters happened and how to prevent more. The researchers embedded themselves within the community (which goes by the pseudonym Poplar Grove) to understand the social conditions that preceded and followed the teenagers’ deaths. Senior policy reporter Rachel Cohen spoke with Mueller and Abrutyn about the youth mental health crisis, the crucial role and responsibility of adults, and how kids take behavioral cues from those around them. This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. If you or anyone you know is considering suicide or self-harm, or is anxious, depressed, upset, or needs to talk, there are people who want to help. In the US: Crisis Text Line: Text CRISIS to 741741 for free, confidential crisis counselingThe National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255The Trevor Project: 1-866-488-7386 Outside the US: The International Association for Suicide Prevention lists a number of suicide hotlines by country. Click here to find them.Befrienders Worldwide Rachel Cohen There’s been a lot of confusing and often conflicting reports about youth suicide trends, especially since the pandemic. Can you outline for readers what we know? Anna Mueller Since 2007, rates of youth suicide in the United States have been increasing pretty significantly and substantially. Not all countries around the world are experiencing this, though some others are. With the pandemic, I feel like I have to plead the fifth since the suicide data is still sort of inconclusive. For some kids, the pandemic was really hard in terms of mental health. For others, it actually took some pressures away. Rachel Cohen Do we know why youth suicide in the US started going up in 2007? What are the best theories? Seth Abrutyn It’s a complicated question. As you’re probably aware, there’s been some recent very public academics like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge who have been studying the relationship between social media and mental health, especially among adolescent girls. So there’s some argument that that’s part of it. Of course, that wouldn’t explain why it started in 2007, when social media and smartphones were not really ubiquitous in the way they are now, but it probably plays a role in accelerating or amplifying some of the underlying things that were happening prior. Another part of the explanation might be that efforts to destigmatize mental health have given people greater license to talk about their mental health. So things that may have been hiding are now out there more, though that doesn’t necessarily explain why suicide rates have gone up, but it may help understand the context. Kids today are growing up in an extremely destabilized environment, and the economy is extremely precarious. Add that to the fact that since 2007, LGBTQ kids have been able to be more freely out, which also then causes more attention to them and invites more backlash. Anna Mueller Everybody asks us that, and I’ll be honest with you, it’s my least favorite question because we just don’t have great data to assess any of these theories. A lot of this really just remains speculation. Social media is something important to consider, but I take a little bit of an issue with the theory that it’s what we should solely be focused on. It’s sort of an excuse to ignore other social problems, like the fact that over that same period, rates of school shootings have increased substantially, and now make things like lockdown drills a normal part of our children’s lives. There’s also been increasing awareness that climate change is a fundamental threat to everyone’s ability to survive and that the cost of college has wildly increased. So we have a lot of pretty challenging things going on. Rachel Cohen I was going to ask you about phones — since as you note there’s a ton of debate right now about their role contributing to worsening mental health, but they didn’t really come up in your book. What role did you see phones play in your research on teen suicide? Anna Mueller Phones facilitated kids talking privately and in spaces that adults couldn’t access. And they meant kids had access to information that their parents weren’t aware they received, like kids would often find out a friend had died by suicide by text. I think that’s something adults need to be really aware of — it means the burden is on us to have meaningful conversations with kids about mental health, suicide, and how to get help because we may not be aware when our kid gets hit with some information that’s going to be relevant. Rachel Cohen But did it seem like the smartphones were causing the mental health problems? Seth Abrutyn Social media didn’t even really come up in the book. When we were in the field , Instagram was out, but it was really more a photographic, artistic thing. Instagram wasn’t about influencers, and Facebook, Vine, and Snapchat were around but kids didn’t all have smartphones yet. Flip phones were still quite available. I think in our original fieldwork, a lot of the young adults were far more impacted by the internet, like they sat at home on a laptop or something like that. In our new fieldwork, what we see are kids who carry the internet on their phones wherever they go. Quickly we’ve habituated to the ubiquity of smartphones and social media. Rachel Cohen In your research, some of the teenagers who died by suicide had loving parents, friends, romantic partners. They didn’t necessarily have mental illness. Can you talk about what you learned with respect to risk factors and protective factors? Anna Mueller In the community where we were working, it was a lot of popular kids who had seemingly perfect lives who were dying by suicide. Some of them probably did have undiagnosed mental illnesses, you know, there was some evidence that they were struggling with things like deep depression or eating disorders or other things. But it was never visible. And so what the community saw was this perfect kid just gone for no reason. It is tough, because on the one hand, what we learned was that this community had really intense expectations for what a good kid and a good family and a good life looked like. And so for kids who didn’t have a lot of life experience to know that there are a lot of options out there for how else to be in this world — they really struggled. Things that helped were having family or other adult mentors who could put things in perspective. Rachel Cohen Life Under Pressure is about youth suicide clusters, and I wanted to ask if you could talk more about this idea of “social contagion,” which comes up several times in your book. It seems community leaders were really nervous about saying or doing the wrong thing in the wake of a youth suicide for fear of contributing to another teenager deciding to take their own life. What does the research on social contagion in this context look like? Anna Mueller Exposure to suicide, either the attempt or death of somebody that a kid cares about — whether they admire them, identify with them, or really love them — can be a pretty painful experience. Suicide is often about escaping pain, and so seeing people role model suicide can increase that vulnerability for kids. Our work suggests that it’s not just pre-existing risk factors, there’s something uniquely painful about exposure to suicide that can introduce suicide as a new way to cope. Seth Abrutyn If we take a step back, suicide is just like almost anything else. Smoking cigarettes, watching television, all the things that we end up doing and liking — a lot of it we’re learning from the people around us. And people are exceptionally vulnerable to influential others. That could be someone that’s very high status that we look up to like a popular kid in school, or it could just be a really close friend that we trust a lot. In the community, where there are these high-status popular kids dying by suicide, if the messaging is not done correctly by adults, if we don’t have adults who can actually help talk through what’s going on and help kids grieve appropriately, the story can easily become, well, for kids who are under pressure and feel distressed, suicide is an option. Rachel Cohen The idea of social contagion has been coming up a lot in debates around youth gender transition too. Some adults say kids are being unduly influenced by their friends and social media regarding things like taking puberty blockers or pursuing gender-affirming surgeries. Other research contests the idea that social contagion is a factor, and some advocates say even the suggestion that gender identity may be susceptible to peer influence is offensive. Does your research in this area offer us any insights here, any more nuanced ways to think about this? Anna Mueller I’m not answering this. We can’t answer this. Sorry. We have ongoing work, and we can’t go there. And I don’t know the literature and we can’t go there. Rachel Cohen Okay, so you don’t think it’s applicable — the social contagion research you’ve studied in the youth suicide context — to other contexts? Seth Abrutyn The only thing I would say is I think the word “contagion” is the word that’s problematic. We’ve tried to actually change that in our own research, and there’s pushback because it’s relatively accepted. It has a sort of folk meaning that everybody can kind of grasp on. The problem is it sounds like how people get the flu in a dormitory, right? But just because everyone shares a heating system and air conditioning system doesn’t mean it will spread like wildfire. Sociologists don’t think of it that way. When behaviors and beliefs spread, it’s usually because people talk about them with each other, or watch people do something and then talk about it. And then they can text that to their friends and talk about it with each other, and in that sense it is contagious, if you want to call it that. I would call it more like diffusion. Rachel Cohen Part of your book is about the need to talk more openly about mental health issues. There’s been this public conversation recently about whether there’s been inadvertent consequences in the push to destigmatize mental illness, with one being that young people may now have become so familiar with the language and frameworks of psychiatric illness that youth can get locked into seeing themselves as unwell. Oxford professor Lucy Foulkes coined the term prevalence inflation to describe the way that some people consume so much information about anxiety disorders that they begin to interpret normal problems of life as signs of decline in mental health, and she warned of self-fulfilling spirals. Psychology professor Darby Saxbe also noted that teenagers, who are still developing their identities, may be particularly susceptible to taking psychological labels to heart. I wanted to invite you to weigh in on these questions and debate. #James Donaldson notes:Welcome to the “next chapter” of my life… being a voice and an advocate for #mentalhealthawarenessandsuicideprevention, especially pertaining to our younger generation of students and student-athletes.Getting men to speak up and reach out for help and assistance is one of my passions. Us men need to not suffer in silence or drown our sorrows in alcohol, hang out at bars and strip joints, or get involved with drug use.Having gone through a recent bout of #depression and #suicidalthoughts myself, I realize now, that I can make a huge difference in the lives of so many by sharing my story, and by sharing various resources I come across as I work in this space.  #http://bit.ly/JamesMentalHealthArticleFind out more about the work I do on my 501c3 non-profit foundationwebsite www.yourgiftoflife.org Order your copy of James Donaldson's latest book,#CelebratingYourGiftofLife: From The Verge of Suicide to a Life of Purpose and Joy www.celebratingyourgiftoflife.com Link for 40 Habits Signupbit.ly/40HabitsofMentalHealth If you'd like to follow and receive my daily blog in to your inbox, just click on it with Follow It. Here's the link https://follow.it/james-donaldson-s-standing-above-the-crowd-s-blog-a-view-from-above-on-things-that-make-the-world-go-round?action=followPub Anna Mueller I’m not sure that I find that idea to be really useful. One of the problems with adults right now is that we’re not listening to the pain that kids are experiencing, or taking it seriously. If I were to advocate for something, I would advocate for seriously listening to kids about their struggles and sources of pain, and working to build a world where kids feel like they matter. Obviously, helping kids build resiliency is incredibly important. We can do a better job at helping our kids navigate challenges, and I’m an advocate of letting kids fail, the road shouldn’t just be perfectly smooth. But I’m pretty fundamentally uncomfortable with not listening to kids’ voices. Rachel Cohen I don’t think anyone’s saying don’t listen to kids, but they’re saying that if you encourage kids to think of themselves as anxious, and if you give kids those certain frameworks to diagnose or understand their problems, and as you noted earlier a lot of this information is coming from social media — Anna Mueller We think of frames as ways for kids to express themselves. As adults, it’s our job to dig deeper into how they’re framing their lives. Can suicide be an idiom of distress? Yes. Research has shown that some kids use the language of suicide as a way to express themselves to the adults in their lives. Similar things with anxiety, but then our job is to unpack that and discover what does that mean. Seth Abrutyn I think what Anna is trying to say, and what our book is trying to say, is that adults are really responsible for the worlds these youth inhabit. And these anxiety frames maybe are something that spreads around on TikTok, but it’s also something that’s being generated by adults, and it’s actually something being generated from real things in their lives, like school shootings. The way that we talk about them, and the way that we don’t listen to them, is maybe not helpful to kids. As a sociologist, we’re sitting there thinking how do we make schools better places? Well, what are adults doing? How are we making schools safer spaces so that this anxiety frame is not something kids are talking about? Rachel Cohen What are the big questions researchers are still grappling with when it comes to youth suicide? Anna Mueller I know one thing that emerged for me and Seth after our book is how can we look at how suicide prevention is enacted in the school building, so that we’re catching kids before they get to that? Since we did the fieldwork for Life Under Pressure, our research has involved working collaboratively with schools to strengthen kids’ ability to get meaningful care. We have begun to see some differences in how schools approach suicide prevention that are actually really salient to whether the school experiences an enduring suicide problem or recurring suicide clusters. Seth Abrutyn Most schools know that trusted adults are a really important part of the school building. And so thinking about how do we get teachers to do little things, like one school building made sure every teacher between classes was outside of their room for five minutes, just standing in the hallway, just saying hi, smiling, and pointing out that you were there. We often think those things don’t make a big impact, but it does. If a kid is not having a good day, maybe they’re not the most popular kid, but if they see that someone remembers them, someone knows them, it makes a real difference. Read the full article

[ecoamerica]

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

[abortionclinictoronto2]

Abortion Pill Alberta

Abortion Pill Alberta

Abortion Pill Alberta: Access, Information, and Support

Navigating the landscape of abortion services, particularly concerning the abortion pill in Alberta, necessitates accurate information and reliable support. This article serves as a beacon, shedding light on accessing the abortion pill, essential information, and avenues for support within Alberta’s jurisdiction.

Understanding Abortion Pill Access in Alberta

In Alberta, accessing the abortion pill is governed by specific regulations ensuring safe and legal procedures. Understanding these access points is pivotal for individuals seeking termination of pregnancy through medication.

The process involves consulting a healthcare provider, discussing eligibility criteria, and obtaining a prescription. Notably, access extends to designated healthcare facilities equipped to administer the abortion pill safely and provide necessary guidance.

Navigating Legal Framework and Guidelines

Within Alberta’s legal framework, guidelines dictate the provision of abortion services, including the abortion pill. Familiarizing oneself with these regulations is paramount to ensure compliance and seamless access to services without unnecessary barriers.

Understanding the legal landscape assures individuals of their rights and helps in making informed decisions regarding pregnancy termination options.

Essential Information on the Abortion Pill

Gaining comprehensive knowledge about the abortion pill is fundamental for individuals considering this method of pregnancy termination. From its mechanism of action to potential side effects, being well-informed empowers individuals to make decisions aligned with their health and well-being.

Understanding the abortion pill’s efficacy, safety profile, and contraindications ensures individuals navigate the process confidently and responsibly.

Seeking Support: Resources and Counseling

Embarking on the journey of pregnancy termination, whether through the abortion pill or other methods, can evoke various emotions and concerns. Accessing support resources and counseling services provides invaluable assistance in navigating these complexities.

From emotional support helplines to counseling sessions, various avenues offer non-judgmental support and guidance tailored to individual needs.

Overcoming Stigma: Advocacy and Community Support

Navigating abortion decisions in a stigmatized environment can pose additional challenges for individuals seeking support and information. Advocacy efforts and community support play pivotal roles in destigmatizing abortion and creating inclusive spaces where individuals feel supported and respected.

Engaging with advocacy groups and accessing community support networks fosters a sense of belonging and solidarity, alleviating the burden of stigma associated with abortion.

Partner and Family Support: Nurturing Relationships

The support of partners, family members, and close friends can significantly impact an individual’s experience with abortion. Open communication, empathy, and non-judgmental support from loved ones create a nurturing environment conducive to informed decision-making and emotional well-being.

Fostering healthy relationships and seeking support from trusted individuals strengthens resilience and promotes holistic healing throughout the abortion journey.

Financial Considerations: Affordability and Accessibility

Financial considerations can influence access to abortion services, including the abortion pill. Understanding available funding options, insurance coverage, and financial assistance programs is crucial for individuals navigating pregnancy termination.

Ensuring affordability and accessibility of abortion services empowers individuals to make decisions based on their needs and circumstances, without financial constraints.

Addressing Barriers: Overcoming Challenges

Despite efforts to ensure access to abortion services, individuals may encounter various barriers that impede their journey. These barriers could range from geographical limitations to logistical challenges or societal stigma.

Identifying and addressing these barriers through advocacy, policy reforms, and community support initiatives is essential for creating an inclusive and supportive environment for all individuals seeking abortion care.

Telemedicine: Expanding Access and Convenience

The emergence of telemedicine has revolutionized healthcare delivery, including abortion services. Telemedicine platforms offer remote consultations, prescription fulfillment, and support services, enhancing access and convenience for individuals, particularly those in rural or underserved areas.

Embracing telemedicine expands access to abortion care, empowering individuals to make informed decisions about their reproductive health from the comfort and privacy of their homes.

Ensuring Confidentiality and Privacy

Respecting individuals’ confidentiality and privacy is paramount in abortion care delivery. Healthcare providers and support services prioritize maintaining strict confidentiality protocols, ensuring individuals’ information remains protected and secure throughout the process.

Confidentiality safeguards individuals’ privacy rights, fostering trust and confidence in accessing abortion services without fear of stigma or discrimination.

Empowering Informed Decision-Making

Central to the abortion pill journey is the principle of informed consent, wherein individuals are equipped with comprehensive information to make autonomous decisions about their reproductive health. Empowering individuals through accurate information, supportive resources, and compassionate care ensures their agency and dignity are upheld throughout the abortion process.

Informed decision-making promotes autonomy, bodily integrity, and reproductive rights, fostering a culture of respect and empowerment in abortion care provision.

[nymphantasia]

Man I wish that birth control was like, something that you could just have done once and then turn off on your own without a doctor if you wanted to. This is not especially relevant to my life rn but just now I was hearing about an unplanned / possibly unwanted pregnancy at work and that sounds like it's just the fucking worst for absolutely everyone involved.

Obviously abortions should be much much more accessible and destigmatized as well, but I feel like much more convenient (and in effect by default) birth control would go a long fucking way

[lilou-a]

SisterSong

The SisterSong organization and other reproductive justice coalitions insist on opposing the reductive framing of reproductive rights.

Reproductive Justice is not just about abortion and access to contraception. SisterSong advocates for a holistic and inclusive philosophical approach focusing on intersectional issues to activate new laws and social norms supporting human rights.

Fighting for an equal right to vote 

Access to polling locations, combat voter suppression and gerrymandering. 

Stop the propaganda that voting is useless and make the intellectual effort to understand politics and debate.

Access to grassroots movements for young people not enrolled in colleges

Elicit robust fundraisers

Free sex education from moralizing and religious dogma and destigmatize reproductive healthcare 

Free sexuality and combat heteronormative systems

Liberate the female and transgender body from stigma, retaliation, and violence.

The sexual act is a positive act away from procreation.

Destigmatize communities that are challenged by incarceration, substance use, sex enterprise, and STDs.

Create positive actions to address mental illness, poverty, and dehumanizing treatments of ostracized individuals.

Fight violence against women and LGBTQIA2S+ individuals and design laws to effectively protect against predators, patriarchal values that condone domestic abuse, and institutionalized violence in healthcare settings and the workplace by addressing the culture of silence in the military and the public and private sectors.

Deinstitutionalize access to reproductive healthcare and empower grassroots organizations to provide access to alternative birthing options and contraceptive means. 

Women on Waves disseminating vital healthcare information online, and shipping the abortion pill via mail is a perfect example.

Stand-alone birthing centers, day-care providers, educational centers directly supported by citizens coalitions locally, sponsors, and private funds such as the Commonsense Childbirth funded by Groundswell

During their conference in 2020, the SisterSong “offered a range of workshops on a variety of hot-button progressive topics, including environmental justice, immigration and Palestinian solidarity, as well as training for medical providers, nonprofit leaders, lawyers and researchers, and how-to sessions on everything from campus organizing to the entrepreneurship of stripping.”

Reproductive Justice categorically aims to address the complexity of lived realities and the interconnected nature of oppression, systemic racism and sexism, classism, homophobia, and health and ableness status to combat institutional power by addressing simultaneously the law, social norms, economic factors, and education to reach their goals to affirm and deliver equitable human rights to all.

Time Magazine Interview with SisterSong

[hjetst]

The Current that Carried Us (Origins of Healing Justice)

This chapter focuses on three main events of the early 21st century. The first event is the platform that George W. Bush stood on during his presidency. He put a lot of policies in to restrict access to reproductive healthcare and knowledge. The administration also went as far as to limit the spending budget that helped aid in the AIDS pandemic and ostracized organizations that supported sex workers. Additionally, the “family values” and religious elements that were embedded in this presidency, ended up excluding the queer community in more ways than one and unequally targeted minority communities for drug and other crimes. Additionally, imprisonment in the United States increased at an alarming rate, due to policies and laws put into place in the 90s. The “war on terror” started during the Bush administration, leading to the influx of white feminism.

The way that political figures and movements can shape the political landscape for years to come is fascinating. This movement reminds me of the movements going on today around bodily autonomy and abortion access. Roe v Wade was overturned after 50 years, and numerous states changed their laws soon thereafter. As the author points out, movements are rivers, they can go off into other streams, like the stream of today. The past is influencing the present and power is being exerted in numerous ways on bodily autonomy. It is also interesting how individuals are being targeted rather than the system at large, which seems to be a recurring theme. Many are focusing on the act of abortion, but those in support of banning abortions often do not talk about the other questions such as: Why are people getting abortions in the first place? Could making contraception more accessible help? Could comprehensive sex education and destigmatization lower abortion rates? The movement narrows the scope of view, and it suggests that we should take a larger view, including continuing to remember past movements and their impacts.

[ecoamerica]

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!