Serenity… a life's expedition

Okay, not really.

So, I decided to start dipping my toes back into poliblogging – very reluctantly, which is why there is next to nothing on here to reflect that decision – and part of that is also beginning to visit some of the bigger white feminist sites again as, of course, for me as a woman they are a large part of the political landscape.

Sigh. I bet you know where this is going, yeah?

One of my stops today was Shakesville, which is usually not quite that bad but today there is a post titled “ Obama Gives Choice A Pass”, that is just a study in interesting (or maybe infuriating) privilege.

Deeky says:

Here’s an intersting (meaning "infuriating") bit of analysis from the Guttmacher Institute. President Obama’s new budget fails to address any of the current anti-choice policies currently in place, including the Hyde Amendment.

On abortion rights, however, the president is taking a pass. There can be little doubt that the fact that health care reform legislation remains in limbo has something to do with that—with the options on an ultimate compromise on abortion coverage ranging from terrible to horrible. Also tied up in health care reform is the fate of two other key provisions: one to make it easier for states to expand eligibility for family planning under Medicaid and a second to establish new funding for home visiting programs for low-income first-time mothers. [Emphasis mine.]

More here.
Remember how we were all told we just had to vote Dem, because who else was going to protect Roe v Wade? Yeah, okay.

Well, taking the last bit first, I think the main argument used for voting Dem was that Republicans are freaking nuts and destructive, but I guess everyone had their own reasons for voting however they did.

Okay, “More here”, the post says. I clicked. I’m glad I did, because there is more there. A lot more. For example: preceding the paragraph Deeky quotes is this (my emphasis throughout):

On the domestic front, the administration’s top priority for reproductive health and rights is teen pregnancy prevention, for which the administration is recommending a significant boost in funding. With the abstinence-only-until-marriage approach of the bygone era defeated, the new initiative will emphasize an evidence-based approach to reducing teenage pregnancy and the underlying factors that put teens at risk.

Okay, so this may not be that big a deal for some people, particularly those who don’t have teens, or who live in communities where kids have many options or whatever.

However, here is the next paragraph:

On the international front, the administration has unveiled the outlines of the Global Health Initiative that the president first announced last year. Family planning and reproductive health programs and maternal and child health programs figure prominently, and the administration is recommending significant increases in both areas.

Well, that sure sounds like Obama is abandoning choice and women and is NO DIFFERENT THAN A REPUBLICAN!  to me.

Next comes the paragraph Deeky highlighted, then a few programs that are improved modestly or significantly with more funding or support (and the one that is stagnant, with no current challenge to the Hyde Amendment), but then there is this – to me, the biggie:

Maternal and Child Health Globally: A Big Leap Forward

Efforts to reduce maternal mortality and improve maternal health would gain significantly under the president’s proposal, with its new focus on maternal and newborn health. By recommending a 28% increase in funding, administration officials say they want to make up for lost time in this neglected area, especially in light of the looming deadlines to meet Millennium Development Goal 5, which calls for measurable improvements in maternal health by 2015. The budget proposal notes that the maternal and child health program “will also actively invest in integrating across all health programs, particularly family planning, nutrition and infectious diseases.” A 2009 study by Guttmacher and UNFPA found that maternal deaths in developing countries could be slashed by 70% and newborn deaths cut nearly in half if the world doubled investment in family planning and pregnancy-related care.

Tell me again why we wasted our time voting for Democrats?

Yeah, yeah, I know… these are not Americans and, most likely, the vast majority of them are poor women of color in some far off (or close by) land, and their babies are not snowflakes and sure it’ll just reduce incidents of complications of pregnancy (or rape) which have been eliminated in Western nations, like fistula, and give women much needed access to family planning strategies (including abortion), and health and nutritional programs, but ….

But…. what?

You know – I understand that people are frustrated with Obama, that some can’t stand him and are even regretting their votes (if they voted for him) and all that – I certainly have issues with him myself – but this whole bit of some white feminists (many of whom know better intellectually, or at least how to mouth that they do) reverting to (stereo)type, clinging to the top of the tree of white feminism (abortion) in, apparently, the need to deny any good thing done by Obama, while ignoring everything going on below (broad, integrated family planning and health, nutrition, small and large gains for non-white, non-middle class women, stuff that can make serious, dramatic differences in women’s lives) is seriously annoying. And depressing.

Melissa says, in the comments to Deeky’s post:

“And this is exactly what I meant when I said, over and over and over again, that Roe being overturned wasn’t as serious a concern as the steady erosion of abortion rights which will ultimately render Roe an empty statute.
Sure, Obama will technically protect Roe — even as he’ll still "take a pass" on abortion rights.”

No, no, no. Actions like these are not a “steady erosion of abortion rights”. It’s acts like these, the shoring up of rights and women globally and locally, that are attempting to rebuild the eroded abortion and family planning rights. Slowly, maybe, sure. But it all goes toward it. Did he “take a pass” on Hyde? Sure, for now at least, and particularly with the health care bill on the balance as it is. But is he passing, wholesale, on abortion rights or reproductive justice? No.

Remember, to get to you, they come through us first (the “they” mainly being the Republicans, the religious right, the removers of personal rights, so on and the “us” being the non-white, non-middle class, non-Americans, non-privileged). We are not a separate, boutique issue. To get to you, they come through us first. With laws regulating privacy, allowing for the arrest of pregnant women who don’t conform to an expected set of behaviors, forced contraception, limited access to family planning or family health centers and so on.

I think the fix has to come through us as well. Primarily. There are a lot of building blocks which formerly shored up Roe – some seemingly having no connection at all – which have been being assiduously chipped away at, that need attention.

I don’t expect perfection from Obama, or anything close to it – I never have. He’s far too conservative to make me happy politically – I am basically a socialist and, despite all the howling of the Republibaggers, Obama is very far from that. But to look at that list of proposed changes in funding and only take from it that he’s “taking a pass on abortion rights” says to me that… well, might be time to check few knapsacks or something.

[Illustration of a Woman on the Top of a Mountain by Charles Courtney Curran from here]

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 4:34 pm and is filed under feminism, i'm old and crabby and i have a pen, womanism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.