Should Women Apologize for Abortion?

Originally posted at PopularResistance.org



Kelly Carlin and Katie Klabusich on Acronym TV discuss the war on women.

It’s been over 40 years since the Supreme Court decided, in Roe v Wade, that women have a constitutional right to abortion. The legal argument was based around the concept that women had a right to privacy under the due process clause of the 14^th Amendment, and that right extended to their right to have an abortion. Perhaps no time in the 40 years since Roe v Wade have female reproductive rights been so under attack. From Texas to Alabama to Congressmen saying that women can’t get pregnant when raped because their bodies have a way of shutting that sh*t down, men (usually white conservative men with ties to patriarchal religious institutions) are working their balls off trying to control women; specifically a woman access to birth control and abortion.

In the United Sates, one out of every three women has had an abortion. If you are a women living in Texas, and a growing number of states, access to this basic, simple, and safe procedure has been severely restricted with the passage of hundreds of new laws in the last several years that strip a women's right to privacy, limit access to abortion, and shame women into thinking that their choice about what to do with their bodies is wrong.

Joining me on the program this week to discuss the War on Women, I’m proud to welcome Kelly Carlin and Katie Klabusich.

Kelly Carlin hosts a weekly podcast “Waking from the American Dream” and her recent one woman show, A Carlin Home Companion, sold out around the country while generating rave reviews. She also holds masters in Jungian Depth Psychology, but, according to her bio, her desire to be on a stage and yell the word “fuck” kept gnawing at her, and so she decided to follow the call of the stage once again. You can find out more at TheKellyCarlinSite.com

Katie Klabusich contributes regularly to a number of radio programs, podcasts and TV/internet video broadcasts. She is an award-winning social media director, fundraiser and community-builder as well as the Activism Director/Segment Writer at The Best of the Left Podcast. She is also a dedicated activist who helps establish clinic defense escort programs, providing logistical and moral support to reproductive access groups.

Pregnant 'Occupy Seattle' Protester miscarries after Police brutality

It was reported today that Jennifer Fox, the 19 year-old protester who was pepper sprayed and kicked in the stomach by Seattle Police, has miscarried.

The Daily Mail reports:

'I was standing in the middle of the crowd when the police started moving in,' Ms Fox has said.
‘I was screaming, “I am pregnant, I am pregnant. Let me through. I am trying to get out,”’ she continued.

After being kicked and sprayed, she was rushed to the hospital by ambulance where she said an ultrasound confirmed that her baby had not been affected.

But she began cramping and went back to the hospital five days later, and she said she was then told by doctors that there was no heartbeat for the baby.

Jennifer Fox shortly after the brutality occured:

My reaction on the day of the incident

:


From Kevin Farrell:

Seattle police sergeant Sean Whitcomb: “We are aware of a claim that a pregnant woman who attended the November 15 Occupy Seattle march has been treated for miscarriage. We are also aware that she has attributed the miscarriage to the use of pepper spray and physical contact by Seattle police officers. No formal complaint has been made. Consistent with standard procedure, the Office of Professional Accountability, or OPA, has initiated an internal investigation to look into the matter further. The OPA investigators will be actively searching for any information that will support this claim.”

Seattle Police Mace 84 year-old woman; Pregnant Teen

Today Occupy Seattle held a solidarity march for Occupy Wall Street-- which was evicted yesterday in a suprise raid by the NYPD. Now there are reports of police brutality coming from the raid on Occupy Wall Street, but I actually want to focus on this Solidarity March that happened in Seattle.

Seattle police spokesman Jeff Kappel said he didn't have specifics on this incident, but he said pepper spray is "is not age specific. No more dangerous to someone who is 10 or someone who is 80."

Oh good, so the Seattle Police Department feels equally okay pepper spraying both our children and our grandparents with a chemical weapon. That makes me feel really safe and secure. Thanks Officer Friendly for your kindly neighborhood watch.

I guess the Seattle Police feel that Chemical Weapons need to be deployed to protect us all from cheek pinching and lemonade stands.

Now reports from the protesters say that the Police were firing pepper spray indescriminately into the crowd. This is probably the case because Jeff Kappel, when asked if it were harmful said, "we probably wouldn't be using pepper spray if that was the case."

Jeff Kappel, meet me at camera three. What’s that? I’ve just got the one camera?
And you’re saying there’s nobody else here, it’s just me. And you’re saying I don’t actually have an earpeice. Okay.

Jeff Kappel, your job as spokesperson for the Seattle Police department means that you need to be able to talk with a well-informed authority. But I have to ask-- have you ever been pepper sprayed? Because I have. Sort of. I wasn’t directly hit, I was just pushed into a hanging cloud that had disbursed into the air after somebody 40 feet away from me had been sprayed. You know what this minor exposure felt like? My lungs were burning. My throat was burning. My eyes were burning. I could barely breathe. The people who were hit directly with pepperspray experienced a level of pain that I cannot imagine. They were writhing in pain on the ground, vomiting, barely able to draw a breath. Some elderly women I was with were suddenly unable to breathe and had to be taken away in an ambulance.

Those sprayed described the feeling of pepper spray on the skin as being akin to placing one’s hand on a hot stove, but being unable to pull it away for hours. And the effects don’t go away after just a few minutes. They don’t go away in a few hours. They don’t even go away in a day. The injuries sustained by the use of this chemical weapon last for days.

And you used this chemical weapon on a pregnant woman.
And somebody’s grandmother.

I want that sink into your conscience for a little while. Would you pepper spray your grandmother, Jeff?

So Jeff Kappel, do us all a favor, would you? Before you start to open your yap and spout some bullshit about how this chemical weapon probably isn’t harmful, I want you to ask one of your fellow officers to give you a faceful of pepper spray, to stab you in the gut with a night stick, lock you in a jail cell, and then deny you access to treatment for 24 hours.

Then you will have the knowledge and authority to tell us all exactly how harmless it really is.