We recognize that the “Forty Days for Life” protests in front of our clinic bring us a lot of attention that can be put to good use. The picketing has resulted in many expressions of community support for Family Planning Health Services (FPHS) as well as a much higher level of visibility for the health care services we provide. On the other hand, the anti-abortion signs persistently misrepresent what FPHS actually does – confusing the public about whether FPHS provides abortion (we do not and we are prohibited by our grant contracts from even making referrals). FPHS provides contraceptive services, provides all-options information, and we are prochoice. That seems to be enough to draw the sanctimonious “prayer bullies” to our street corner . . . and soon they’ll be on yours.
Understanding that there is a need to connect the local to the state and the state to the national, FPHS is proudly supporting the newly launched “Forty 4 Forty” joint fund raising campaign of the Wisconsin Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Pro-Choice Wisconsin. FPHS, because we are clearly not an abortion provider, can play an important role for all primary health care providers that the picketers are anti-contraception as well as anti-abortion.
The Forty4Forty campaign begins this week. A sign to solicit pledges for Forty 4 Forty will go up on our Wausau building tomorrow morning.
“A defender of the church,” proclaimed the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel headline for an extensive story about the new Archbishop-designate, Jerome Listecki. The subtitle for the article was: “Archbishop designate Listecki vows collaboration, but unafraid of debate.” The subtitle was probably derived from the bishop’s description of how he planned to participate in the political process. He said: “If we don’t challenge one another’s statements, then we’re relinquishing our responsibility to the common good.”
The following month, young Catholics for Choice (yCFC – a Washington D.C. based organization) and Family Planning Health Services (FPHS – an agency with family planning clinics in eight Wisconsin counties) formed a unique sectarian-secular advertising partnership, produced informational ads for broadcast, and then embarked on a two-day Wisconsin “road-trip” to draw media attention to their campaign and to build public (including the Catholic public) awareness and knowledge about emergency contraception.
The purpose of the joint media campaign was two-fold; 1) to inform the public about how Plan B works so they would have it on hand in advance of need and, 2) to inform Catholic women of reproductive age that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops health care directives permit the use of emergency contraception to prevent pregnancies resulting from rape.
In the January 2010 issue of the Journal of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, Ron Hamel, Ph.D., makes it very clear that the ethics of access to emergency contraception for Catholics needs to be fully examined and explained. Professor Hamel’s article and the YCFC/FPHS EC campaign are an effort to fulfill that responsibility when there is significant resistance.
The campaign succeeded in getting a response from the Archbishop-designate and thus succeeded in its secondary purpose. The headline on the Christmas Eve edition of the La Crosse Diocesan newspaper is: “Bishop Rejects Young Catholics for Choice Message.” The front page column ran adjacent to the departing bishop’s message. But what he rejected so prominently: “ . . . that Catholics can disregard Church teaching on contraception, abortion, and human sexuality in general and remain Catholics in good standing,” was only weakly connected to the message that yCFC and Family Planning Health Services (FPHS) were promoting.
Bishop Listecki, like most of the Catholic protestors in front of the FPHS clinic, will allow “no room for interpretation,” once the bishop’s authority has been invoked. Many within the church see the bishop’s pattern of authoritarian rebukes, condemnations, and admonitions as futile efforts to suppress dissent and they understand they are not the views of other Catholics or even the other American bishops. Just as importantly, the denials and condemnations are not solely inflicted on the faithful. The prayer vigil protestors’ and Bishop Listecki’s efforts to eliminate access to emergency contraception, if they succeed, would apply to women regardless of their faith.
Erik Cieslewicz and Brooke Sperry have produced a documentary about the joint campaign that will be released February 17th, 2010. The web-posting will occur on the same day that another Lenten prayer vigil outside an FPHS clinic (which does not provide abortion services) begins in central Wisconsin. The video shows the challenge as well as the fun of the effort to educate the public in the face of consistent efforts to suppress and to misinform. Earlier, “40 Days for Life” prayer vigils played a large part in motivating FPHS and yCFC to cooperate in the advertising effort to correct misinformation being spread by their opponents.
Our share of these costs comes out of our paychecks before we receive them. Are we paying attention to how much it is costing to provide health insurance for families in 2009?
These numbers jumped out of the page when I read Drew Altman’s article on the cost of employer provided health insurance. The projection for those costs to rise in the next 10 years reinforced for me the need for health care reform NOW.
As we work on future podcasts, we think it is important to share some of the information we are looking at. In the next weeks we shall be doing a series of podcasts about Health Care Disparities. My co worker Sue Kettner shared this report with me, and I thought I would share it with you.
Earlier this month, a woman came into the FPHS Drive-Up and made a donation. She told us that she had promised herself if she ever drove past our clinic and saw people protesting, she would make a contribution. That day, because the protesters were standing there, she drove around the block, into the Drive-Up, pulled out her checkbook and made a donation.
It happened again with a different person today — another donation because protesters were standing in front of the family planning clinic in Wausau.
It has been hard for FPHS staff, myself included, to understand the protests outside the clinic because we know that we provide caring, compassionate voluntary contraceptive care that prevents unintended pregnancy (and care that helps people take responsibility for their reproductive health including planning for healthy pregnancies when they are ready.)
Having two supporters take the time and make a gift to show their support for us and our services, makes all of us feel appreciated. I’d like to invite all of you to drive through (maybe pick up some condoms) or, if there’s no line, just tell the staff at the window that you support family planning.
I’m sure that there are many times when people speak up for access to birth control when it isn’t easy. To those who do, “THANK YOU!!”
The Senate HELP Committee has started work on its health care reform bill – and they need to hear from you. The bill represents a giant step forward in our efforts to get quality, affordable health care for all women, but some Senators have introduced amendments that would be very damaging to women’s health and that would advance political agendas over accurate science and med
Written by Elizabeth Alexander of the ACLU’s National Prison Project.
Shackling pregnant women during active labor and childbirth is, unfortunately, all too common in our nation’s prisons and jails. One such victim of this practice was Shawanna Nelson, who entered the Arkansas prison system when she was six months’ pregnant, with a short sentence for a non-violent crime. When she went into labor, the correctional officer accompanying her shackled her legs to opposite sides of the bed, and removed the shackles only long enough for the nurses to examine her. Ms. Nelson remained with both her legs shackled to the bed until she was taken to the delivery room, and she was re-shackled immediately after the birth of her son, who weighed almost ten pounds. The shackles caused Ms. Nelson to suffer cramps and intense pain, as she could not adjust her position during contractions. After childbirth, the use of shackles caused her to soil the sheets, because she could not be unshackled quickly enough to get to a bathroom. The correctional officer knew that Ms. Nelson was not a flight risk, and knew that the restraints caused pain and unsanitary conditions. According to expert obstetricians, shackling women during labor is inherently dangerous.
O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us.
(O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see us.)
Robert Burns, Poem “To a Louse” – verse 8
Scottish national poet (1759 – 1796)
For almost a year now, Pro-Life Wisconsin (PLW) has maintained a protest campaign at our family planning and WIC clinics in Central Wisconsin. PLW activities have included a ‘verbal hijacking’ of our Raising Women’s Voices “Speak Out” on women’s health care so that those who wished to speak on issues unrelated to abortion or contraception were by-and-large unheard in the auditorium. Over the Lenten season, PLW and its local supporters participated in the “40 Days for Life” national campaign — conducting a ‘continuous’ prayer vigil outside our clinic offices. When asked by local reporters why they were participating in this effort, they said it was to stop abortion. We do not perform abortions at any of our facilities. As the 40 Days effort has come to an end, we want to share what we have learned.
