Women's Health In Women's Hands

RESPONSE TO Darby Mangen's article "End Birth Control? Not if We Can Help It!"

2012-02-29T13:12:00.005-08:00

(Response by Carol Downer follows Darby Mangen's article)

End Birth Control? Not if We Can Help It! ... Darby Mangen
Nineteen-year-old Lori looked at me incredulously. “What do you mean, make birth control illegal?” Yet it has become abundantly clear in the fast-moving developments of recent weeks that Republicans would like to do exactly that.

Unthinkable? Until recently, only the lunatic fringe talked seriously about it. Suddenly it has become a legitimate topic of debate — a right women are being forced to defend once again.

Next Front in the War on Women: “No” to Prenatal Testing
Rick Santorum has long opposed contraception and has pledged to preach about “the dangers of contraception in this country,” if elected president. “It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be,” he has said. The former Pennsylvania senator has also claimed that states should have the right to outlaw birth control. At the February convention of CPAC, Santorum took the position that insurance shouldn’t cover birth control because it “only costs a few dollars.”

Republicans have taken up the cause, under the guise of “religious freedom.” Leader of the Senate, vowed to not to let the birth control issue drop until they (the anti-birth control faction) wins.

Now Santorum has added prenatal testing to his list of unacceptable practices. “The government shouldn’t make health care providers fully cover prenatal tests like amniocentesis, which can determine the possibility of Down syndrome or other fetal problems,” said Santorum, who contends the law is intended to increase abortions and reduce health costs — totally brushing off the benefits to women and fetuses offered by prenatal testing and care.

Republican Fight to Control Women Approaching the Orwellian
Women Must Submit to State-Mandated Rape

The Virginia state legislature has passed a law, which Governor McDonnell is expected to sign, requiring women to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before being allowed to terminate a pregnancy. The woman must undergo a medically unnecessary procedure, which penetrates her vagina, without her consent and against her will.

Rape, as redefined by the FBI just last month, is “the penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

The legislature made it clear that this requirement is a purely punitive measure when it voted down, by a huge majority, an amendment proposed by a Democrat that would have provided the option, in some cases, of a non-invasive ultrasound. A similar law in Texas has been upheld by its State Supreme Court. The Iowa House is likely to pass a forced ultrasound bill, though the Democratically-controlled Senate will prevent its passage there.

A similar law in Texas has been upheld by its State Supreme Court. The Iowa House is likely to pass a forced ultrasound bill, though the Democratically-controlled Senate will prevent its passage there.

Response by Carol Downer
Hi Darby: I have a comment about your lead article re attacks on birth control. It's good, but I think 19-year-old Lori's reaction to hearing that the right wing wants to make birth control illegal shows me that our "pro-choice" movement has let them set the terms of the debate.

The attack on birth control should not have surprised anyone if they had a clear understanding of the basis for the attack on abortion. It shows me how effective the right wing anti-choice movement has succeeded in making people think that they are concerned about "the sanctity of life" or repelled by the regrettable necessity in the small percentage of later abortion of macerating the fetus. In fact, their strategy is, and always has been, to undermine women's ability to control their own sexuality and their own reproductive lives. The attack on abortion is an opportunistic tactical move to hide their real agenda by exploiting the uneasiness that many people feel about abortion, especially later abortion.

We who are fighting for women's rights to control their sexual and reproductive lives must constantly expose the real agenda of the right wing. Santorum states it in unmistakable language, "it's a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be." It's that simple and that profound.

Once you understand their agenda, it's clear that our agenda has to include women's rights to have sex with the partner of her choice, or not to have sex, even if she is married. If a woman chooses to marry, she has to right to marry the partner of her choice; if a woman chooses to have a child, it is her right to dictate the manner of her birthing, including birth center or home birth. If a woman of any age who has passed puberty, chooses to use birth control, it is her right to have access to all methods of birth control. If she chooses not to use birth control or her method of birth control fails, she has a right to an abortion. Just as the patriarchy's broad aim is to subject women to their rule, our aim must be to liberate women, and frame our political strategy in equally broad terms.

Abortion Speak Out Campaign

2012-01-19T13:01:00.000-08:00

January 22nd marks the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. As it stands now, women seeking abortion care must walk through crowds of protestors; abortion providers fear for their safety; states are passing laws to make women seeking abortions go through waiting periods, obtain parental or judicial permission, or view photos of aborted fetuses; politicians vote against women's reproductive rights.

We can turn this situation around if we talk to each other, privately and publicly about our experience with abortion – removing the secrecy and stigma and replacing it with sisterhood and collective action.

This year, if you are planning a campus event, discussion group, fundraiser, or sharing a meal with friends and/or family share your abortion story. Or if this post inspires you to have a Roe v. Wade ‘event’ – plan to share abortion stories. Sharing our stories not only helps us to integrate our abortion experience into our lives, but also informs others of the reality of abortion and lets other women know they're not alone.

When hundreds of thousands of us start sharing our stories with friends and relatives, the cumulative effect of our honesty will be like the sun coming out of the clouds

Take a moment to read WHWH Abortion Speak Out Kit; look through the material. Its intent is to be a guide for organizations or individuals who express interest to create a 'safe-space' where people can share their abortion stories.

Encouraging Suggestions:
(1) Host an Abortion Speak Out - Over the past year, organizations held over six different Abortion Speak Outs throughout the country; from the 2010 N.O.W. Conference (Boston, MA) to “Open Mic Speak Outs" in Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan.

(2) Post the Abortion Speak Out Palm Card (at school, work, etc.) - A prescreened list of pro choice websites, where women can share their stories and read other women's stories (i.e. 45 Million Voices, I’mNotSorry, Project Voice, etc); to prevent people from going onto FAKE clinics websites. For copies print p. 7 of the speak out kit.

(3) Host an “Abortion Speak Out” Conversation Night – invite friends and family for a potluck dinner and share frank and honest opinions surrounding abortion. References: Abortion Diaries by Penny Lane and My Abortion, My Life Conversation Night.

(4) Your Suggestions and Ideas - As emphasized before, the kit is only a guideline (don't let it hinder your creativity). Please keep us informed of any creative outlet this kit provides.

- Women’s Health in Women’s Hands

Recommended Read: As Access Slides, Feminists Need to "Extract" From Our Self-Help Past by Carol Downer

As Access Slides, Feminists Need to "Extract" From Our Self-Help Past

2012-01-12T12:10:00.000-08:00

[Originally published in On The Issues Magazine]
by Carol Downer

If working in the abortion movement for over 40 years qualifies me to gaze into my crystal ball to see the future for abortion rights in the United States, here goes.

Prediction Number One: I see the Supreme Court continuing to interpret Roe v. Wade in a way that will make abortion, especially later abortion, more expensive, less convenient to access and more humiliating, but I do not see the court reversing Roe v. Wade outright. I see clinics closing down due to restrictive regulations and lack of doctors, especially in areas far from an urban center. This lack of access will mostly affect young women and poor women of color. But, as was the case before the decision in Roe v. Wade, the majority of unwillingly pregnant women will continue to get abortions, no matter how far they have to travel or no matter how great the cost or risk.

Why? The hypocritical leaders of this country, both right and left, recognize that the U.S. industrialized economy is built on the small nuclear family with both parents working, so large families are out. This lowers the birth rate, which satisfies the leaders, who, rather than creating a more just, sustainable society, think reducing women's fertility solves social problems such as pollution and poverty. Immigration, legal and illegal, produces the influx of workers and soldiers so desired by the conservatives who have created an unjust society where one percent possess the wealth and resources, further enabling them to keep the 99 percent low-paid and politically powerless.

Prediction Number Two. I see successive generations of young U.S. women accepting new restrictions. I also see some radical feminist actions, such as the formation of an underground movement of menstrual extraction groups. This will keep the technology alive, but will not change the trend that makes abortion less available, more expensive and more stigmatized.

Why? Once Roe v. Wade became the law in 1973, all organized efforts to educate the public and to seize the technology of abortion came to an abrupt halt. The leadership, by default, fell to a few political advocacy groups, such as NARAL Pro-Choice America in Washington D.C. and Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York and D.C. They keep a vigilant eye on how Congressional members vote on legislation affecting birth control and abortion. They, and NOW, have organized a couple of mammoth abortion rights marches on Washington over the years. But Washington D.C. ignores the masses who come in on Saturday, march through the streets, then board the busses and go home on Sunday.

In 1976, the first, most devastating blow to Roe v. Wade came through Congress, not the Supreme Court. Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, an addendum to an appropriations bill, to stop any federal funding of abortion for low-income women. Every year, Congress re-passes this amendment. Every year, Congress exploits the racist and classist bias of the women's movement. We were ignominiously defeated by the passage of the Hyde Amendment in 1976, 35 years ago.

Even though the vast majority of American women are pro-choice, even feminists are complacent and do nothing other than voting for pro-choice elected officials and sending a check to their favorite national pro-choice organization.

Turning Back the Attack
In my opinion, the factors keeping abortion "safe and legal" are: (1) the continuing broad public support for the decriminalization of abortion; (2) the stalwart daily work of hundreds of doctors and abortion clinics around the country in the face of anti-abortion harassment and violence, and (3) the policymakers' need to keep women in the workforce.
To regain the ground the women won in the past, we have to learn how we won it and apply those lessons to today. We must revive the spirit of the second wave of the feminist movement, which came out of the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement. The Women's Liberation Movement started out to liberate women by challenging the whole "system," but, unfortunately, changed its focus to raising women's status in that system.

Most American women today were not born then or were children, and have not experienced being part of a major social movement for women's liberation, as I experienced in the 1960s and 1970s. I joined the Los Angeles chapter of NOW in 1969, and was part of that huge wave of women who came forward to demand women's liberation, including repeal or reform of anti-abortion laws. Through the decade before that, I read frequent newspaper articles announcing that a respected community or professional organization had passed some resolution recommending the decriminalization of abortion. In 1962, I saw the television coverage of Sherri Finkbine's trip to Scandanavia to get an abortion.

This coverage was part of a powerful campaign to stop back-alley abortions. It was led by white religious leaders, mostly men, and professionals, mostly men, who educated the public and roused public outrage against these unjust laws. By the end of the decade, the women's movement started. Many women's groups set up "women's nights" at the local free clinic to provide birth control; they were referring women to New York and California to get abortions. One group, "Jane", in Chicago, set up an abortion service. The women at Harvard were delving into the medical library to write a newsprint booklet, "Women and Their Bodies," which was so popular that Simon and Schuster published it as Our Bodies Ourselves in 1970.

On the West Coast, our group worked with Lana Clark Phelan and Patricia Maginnis, the founders of NARAL (which stood for the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws). We learned to do abortions with a new hand-held device that used suction to remove the contents of an early pregnancy; Lorraine Rothman modified that device so that groups of us who were minimally trained could extract either our menstrual period or an early pregnancy. We called this procedure "menstrual extraction." In 1971, Lorraine and I toured the country, teaching vaginal self-examination; self help and menstrual extraction groups sprung up at most of the places we visited. Rebecca Chalker described the process of menstrual extraction in On The Issues Magazine in 1993.

It was the cumulative effect of all these years of mainstream efforts, topped off by the massive numbers of women coming forward to protest, to march and to start projects to circumvent the law that laid the foundation for Roe v. Wade. The seizing of the means of reproduction by the women of the self-help movement did not escape the notice of Justice Harry Blackmun, the Supreme Court justice who authored Roe v. Wade and referred to it in his opinion among a list of new medical techniques. I believe that in another couple of years, one way or another, abortion laws would have become irrelevant because women in the U.S. were taking the matter into our own hands.

The Women's Liberation Movement saw the right to an abortion as part of the right of a woman to control her own body and her own reproduction and sexuality, which, in turn, is part of women's full participation in society and their power to assert their values.

Through the years, women have been somewhat successful in raising women's status, but in a militaristic, environmentally destructive society. U.S. women may come closer to earning as much as their male counterparts and getting as much education, but the system has become more entrenched and women's education and work only makes it more so.

Women are losing ground every day in the control of our sexual and reproductive lives. Women seek genital surgery to make their vulva and clitoris look like some non-existent ideal; the medical profession dictates that women submit to radical intervention in their births, and, women face multiple physical and social barriers to nursing babies.

Even the movement pushing for liberation from the tyranny of heterosexual roles doesn't challenge the patriarchal nature of society, but rather seems to be challenging the legitimacy of women's pride in our women's bodies, our ability to bear and raise children and to fight together, as women, for social and economic equality and a humane stewardship of the environment.

Rebuilding the Future
There are powerful stirrings of people around the world challenging non-democratic structures; even in the U.S., we see the Occupy Wall Street protests. Perhaps the forces are shaping up that will promote a new wave of feminist activism.

Whether this is so or not, there are women's health groups building a sound base for a broader women's movement, doing radical feminist health and sex education with a holistic self-help foundation. Some midwives and full-spectrum doulas are rebuilding the network of menstrual extraction groups. In short, we will be ready.

Carol Downer is the author of "A New View of a Woman's Body," "How to Stay Out of the Gynecologist's Office," "Women Centered Pregnancy and Birth," and "A Book of Women's Choices."

Self-Help: Key to Understanding the Changes Our Bodies Go Through During Pregnancy

2011-12-07T12:33:00.000-08:00

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Woman-Centered Pregnancy and Birth by Ginny Cassidy-Brinn, R.N., Francie Hornstein, and Carol Downer
Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers
Illustrations by Suzann Gage

Limited USED copies available online - Amazon.com

To actually see your cervix and the opening to the uterus-the opening that will dilate to allow the baby's head to come out-can be one of the most exciting moments in your pregnancy. Suddenly, all of the diagrams and drawings that you have been looking at to try to understand what is happening, make perfect sense. And, just as when a woman is not pregnant, being able to look at the cervix makes it easier to ward off or alleviate common problems such as vaginal infections or urinary tract infections.

It is not essential to do vaginal self-examination in order to understand the processes of pregnancy and birth or in order to stay healthy. Any woman can carry out all of the suggestions in this book without ever seeing her cervix. Self-examination of the vagina and cervix using a plastic vaginal speculum is, however, very simple to learn, requires a minimum of equipment and is a common-sense health routine equivalent to standing in front of a mirror, opening your mouth and saying, "Ah."

Self-examination can be done by yourself or in a self-help group. The Self-Help Clinic started out in April, 1971, as a type of consciousness-raising group. The Self-Help Clinic is a meeting where women learn to do self-examination of the vagina, the cervix and discuss their health experiences. Depending on the age, sexual orientation, and wishes of the participants, the topic may be birth control, menopause, sexuality, childbirth, vaginal infections or feelings about our bodies.

The equipment needed for self-examination is a vaginal speculum, a light and mirror. Most women prefer a semi-sitting position on a bed, table or the floor, usually with a pillow behind them. Water soluble jelly can be used to moisten the bills of the speculum. The speculum is inserted with the bills closed, handle up. Many women are pleasantly surprised to find that, since they are in control, the procedure is not painful. You open the speculum by pushing down the front of the handle while simultaneously pulling up on the back. As the speculum opens, you will hear three clicks. You can lock the speculum into place at whichever notch is comfortable. Speculum's come in three sizes, narrow, medium and long. Most women use a medium. Many women who usually used a narrow speculum found it was easier to insert a medium size speculum during pregnancy. Many women have noticed that their cervixes moved further back in the vagina during pregnancy and found it necessary to switch from their usual medium size speculum to a long one.

The light, generally a flashlight or a high-intensity lamp, is reflected off the mirror so that the vaginal walls and cervix are illuminated. Magnifying mirrors can help you to see details.

Often, women need several attempts to bring the cervix into view. But, with practice it becomes much easier. No one who has tried persistently has failed to use the speculum successfully. As your abdomen gets larger with pregnancy it becomes more difficult to see your cervix. By lying flat, self-examination can be made easier with the help of one other person holding a large mirror over your cervix. As pregnancy progresses, the cervix grows along with the rest of the uterus. Some women's cervices get so large that it is possible to see only a portion of the cervix at any one time. By pointing the speculum in different directions, you can eventually see the entire cervix.

You can safely do vaginal self-examination throughout pregnancy as long as the bag of waters hasn't broken and you are having no signs of miscarriage. These guidelines are the same as the guidelines for deciding when it is safe to have coitus (see p. 61)

Two customs are observed in the Self-Help Clinic. A woman does self-examination if and when she feels comfortable doing so, and she gets to look at her cervix fist. Many women want to do self-examination at the first meeting; others take their speculum's home to have their first look in privacy. Initially, a woman may feel reluctant to do self-examination if she is menstruating of has a bad-smelling vaginal infection. When she finds out that the other women are eager to learn about menstruation or vaginal infections, she is generally happy to give them a chance to learn. Embarrassment is replaced by curiosity; some have called it "show and tell time."

The distinctive sounds of a Self-Help Clinic are the clicking of speculums, the buzzing of several conversations and intermittent choruses of laughter. An air of discovery and adventure exhilarate most women in the Self-Help Clinic.

Another important part of the Self-Help Clinic is the uterine size check. A member of the group can feel your uterus by inserting two fingers of a gloved hand into the vagina pressing with the flat of the fingers of the other hand just above the pubic mound. After the first three months of pregnancy it is not necessary to insert the fingers into the vagina. While lying flat, the uterus can be felt by pressing down under the ribs, with the flat of the fingers, and gradually moving the fingers down toward the pelvis until a hard muscular ball is felt. This is the top of the uterus which get approximately one inch higher per month during pregnancy. The purpose of the uterine size check is to learn the size, shape and position of the uterus. Its growth can be recorded by periodically measuring the distance from the top of the uterus to the pubic bone with a tape measure laid flat on the uterus. A uterine size check can also be done to see if the uterus is larger or softer than usual, indicating pregnancy.

At the first Self-Help Clinic we learned to do self-examination of the cervix and vagina. As woman after woman inserted her speculum, looked at her cervix, then passed around the flashlight so that others could look, we exclaimed over the different characteristics of each women. It soon became obvious that the so-called "disease" of yeast overgrowth is a common and generally harmless condition. In an era of tight jeans, nylon pantyhose, the Pill, and high sugar diets, we have varying amounts of yeast in our vaginas. We were struck by the absurdity of having made numerous trips to the doctor to deal with this everyday common problem. All but one of us had "tipped uterus," which merely means that is was angled wither toward the back or front instead of the classic, textbook angle. One women recalled that her doctor said her tipped uterus accounted for her problems in getting pregnant. Another said that her doctor had blamed her tipped uterus for her many pregnancies. Just by talking to each other and comparing notes, we could see how we had been made to feel like there was something wrong when, in fact, we were quite healthy.

That very first evening of self-help, like all those that have followed, liberated us from many of the myths and notions that had driven us to the gynecologist. We found that irregular menstrual cycles are not uncommon; very few of us fit the 28-day cycle model. Our normal secretions varied throughout our cycle, becoming very heavy around the time of ovulation. This "discharge" had caused many of us great concern.

Menstrual Extraction is an early accomplishment of the Self-Help movement. Lorraine Rothman invented the Del-Em, a device used by groups of women to suction out the uterine contents on or near to the time of the expected menstrual period. This technique, which shortens the menstrual period, lightens the flow, or terminates an early pregnancy, has been used by women for ten years with outstanding safety and success. If this technology were widely available to women, the dark ages of state control of women's reproduction would be over. We would cease to worry about what the predominately male Supreme Court or legislature dictate.

The concepts of Self-Help have had a tremendous impact on the women's health movement. Lorraine Rothman and Carol Downer, members of the first Self-Help Clinic, travelled around the country in the fall of 1971, visiting women's groups to lecture on abortion and to hold Self-Help Clinics. Many women's health groups had reached an impasse at that time. They were counseling and referring women to abortion facilities on the East and West coasts and they had read Women and Their Bodies, the predecessor to Our Bodies, Ourselves. But they felt unable to proceed further due to lack of funds and the lack of cooperation of the medical profession in their communities. Self-Help gave them the ability to directly learn well-woman health care. They were able to do independent research, to compile information and finally, to set up women-controlled clinics.

The women in a Self-Help group in Santa Cruz, California taught themselves to be midwives and later formed the United States' first birth center, the Santa Cruz Birth Center. The concept of a community center where women having home births could come for prenatal care and meet other pregnant women has since become very popular. One of the midwives in this group, Raven Lang, wrote the first and for several years the only book on home birth, The Birth Book. This book inspired many mothers to have home births and many women to become midwives.

Woman-Centered Pregnancy and Birth focuses on information that enables you to make important decisions about your pregnancy and birth. Learning self-examination is an important first step, and a self-help group is the best setting in which to learn it.

You can order a plastic speculum from the Feminist Women's Health Center or the Women's Health Specialists

Also, visit "Our Anatomy" webpage for further information.

Limited USED copies of Woman-Centered Pregnancy and Birth, available online - Amazon.com

Woman-Centered Pregnancy and Birth published in 1984 - we encourage comments, insights and suggestions; please write whwh@womenshealthinwomenshands.org

No Stopping: From Pom-Poms to Saving Women's Bodies

2011-10-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

By Carol Downer

[Originally published in On The Issues Magazine]

In the 1970s, I got involved in the women's self-help movement in California, traveling the countryside to introduce women to vaginal self-examination and pioneering the use of menstrual extraction. I got there, and from there to here, because one action simply led to the next. And to the next. And the next. In fact, my own progression seems to have been to "Think Locally, Act Globally" – exactly the opposite of the popular activist slogan.

I have always been an active participator. I marched and waved pom-poms on the drill team in high school. I led a Girl Scout troop when my daughters were in elementary school in the late 50s and 60s. But my activities gradually changed from "brightening the corner where you are" to humanitarian, such as volunteering as a leader in a girl's club at a high school in a poor neighborhood in the mid-60s. Then I became involved in electoral-type activities through MAPA (Mexican-American Political Association), as did my Chicano husband.

My involvement mirrored the turbulent times. Everyone was getting more politically aware. I helped write a throwaway paper with other activists who were against U.S. military involvement in the Southeast; I headed a committee to recall the local councilman who was pushing an urban renewal program that would kick old people out of their homes, and my circle of mothers in my neighborhood enlarged to include activists in the northeast part of Los Angeles. When the "Watts riot" exploded in south central Los Angeles, I learned to call it "the Watts rebellion." Then, in 1969, along with thousands of others, I marched with my husband and my 16-year-old daughter, Laura Brown, in the Chicano Moratorium. At the march's end, we sat on the grass lawn of Laguna Park and listened to music and speakers until all of us were attacked by hundreds of Los Angeles sheriffs, clad in riot gear, who came across the field swinging billy clubs and shooting tear gas canisters.

With my moratorium experience, I "graduated" from the naive white liberal school. I saw the faces of my oppressors through their plexiglas masks. Afterward, when I complained loudly to one of my friends in Eagle Rock, the white working-class area where we lived, she asked me, "What were you doing there?" My disillusionment with community volunteer activities and electoral level projects was complete.

Stepping Into A New Women's Movement

I started my "post-graduate" work.

I answered the widely publicized call to work for women's rights and specifically abortion rights. In 1969, I attended a National Organization for Women (NOW) meeting. I had little in common with most of the members, white career women who apparently had not had the radicalizing experiences that I had. I was invited to join a committee. I had had an illegal abortion, so I joined the Abortion Committee, headed up by Lana Clark Phelan.

Lana, along with Patricia Maginnis, wrote The Abortion Handbook. I understudied her for a few months. Listening to Lana's devastatingly sarcastic speeches and reading her book demystified abortion laws for me. I learned that abortion had never been criminalized until the rise of the modern, industrialized nation-state. In nineteenth century France, women had figured out how to block the sperm and the egg, and the birth rate was declining. Napoleon Bonaparte needed more Frenchmen to serve as soldiers to fight wars of conquest for the French Empire; therefore, abortion was outlawed.

French peasants were encouraged in every way possible to have as many children as they could. The French peasant father received tax incentives, forms of "social security" to be paid in his old age and increased personal status based on the number of children he had sired. Under the "Code Napoleon," the status of women sank to an all-time low. French women were given in marriage at the earliest possible age. Young women were to be kept pregnant and at home for their own "fulfillment" as women.

Our three-woman committee -- Lana, Mary Petrinovich and me -- was small, but in 1969 and early 1970s, we were in demand. Progressive people wanted to hear about abortion reform and the need to end the estimated 5,000 deaths each year from illegal abortion. Mary traveled in from Riverside to bring women to an illegal clinic on Santa Monica Boulevard, and she introduced me to the abortionist, Harvey Karman, who was posing as a doctor and had been arrested for performing abortions, along with Dr. John Gwynne. Several demonstrations were held to support him and other Northern California doctors who had been arrested. Under the auspices of our committee, I organized a demonstration at Hancock Park of 500 people, the largest abortion demonstration in Los Angeles at that time.

A small, very loosely organized group of women coalesced around Karman's defense and some volunteered at his notorious clinic, which was under constant police surveillance. In the estimation of some of us, both Karman and Gwynne were "male chauvinist pigs." Also, we had a growing suspicion that we could learn how to do the abortions. Karman used an early abortion device that he claimed to have invented which suctioned the contents of the uterus out without the use of metal instruments to scrape its walls. He called it a "non-traumatic" abortion.

Mary invited me to visit the clinic. I accompanied her into the very small procedure room where Karman was inserting an IUD in a woman's uterus. I found myself looking into the woman's vagina, which was held open by a plastic speculum, and I saw her beautiful pink cervix, the opening to the uterus, which was well lit by the gooseneck lamp.

Following the Path of the Cervix

I was transfixed, looking at her rosy, knob-like cervix with a tiny opening. I thought of Lana's brilliant political analysis and I felt the frustration of our century-long suffering from these unjust laws. I had six children at this time, and I had never looked carefully at my genitals (except to look at my raw, bleeding episiotomy incision in the hospital to see where all that pain was coming from). I marveled at how close the cervix is; how simple it is and how accessible it is with the use of an inexpensive, plastic speculum.

A few weeks later, in April 1971, our small group called a meeting at a local women's bookstore, where we showed women the hand-held device that Karman used, and then we demonstrated vaginal self-exam. The women's skepticism about our learning to do abortion vanished upon seeing my cervix, and by the end of the meeting, we had seen several cervixes and had plans to learn to provide abortions underground. We held weekly "Self-Help Clinics" at the Los Angeles Women's Center. Lorraine Rothman was part of that group and she invented a modification of Karman's device, which we used in minimally-trained women's self-help groups to extract our menstrual periods, whether they were on time or late. We traveled up the West Coast and then across the country, demonstrating vaginal self-exam and talking about menstrual extraction, attracting many women to come to L.A. to work with us.

Our plans to open an illegal clinic were shelved because legal abortion was becoming available in Los Angeles just at that time. We believed that it was more important for us to give women the encouragement and the tools to learn about their bodies so that we would cease to be at the mercy of those who wanted to control us, whether to outlaw abortion or to manipulate birthing American women to consent to c-sections. And, we started WARS, a women's abortion referral service, where we counseled and physically examined women at the Women's Center and then accompanied them to the hospital for their abortion.

Our self-help movement grew; we wrote books, set up clinics around the nation after Roe v. Wade and we traveled to Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Mexico, among other places. Many of us became health professionals in traditional and alternative medical practices (and my marching daughter, Laura, began in self-help and then started the Oakland Women's Choice Clinic.) We attended national and international conferences. I witnessed the efforts of the anti-natalists who force birth control on women and want to limit the number of babies they have, such as in China. And I witnessed the pro-natalists, who want to force women to have more babies, such as the Catholic Church, but are also bankrolled by reactionary wealthy upper class people. I knew activism was needed to stop these forces, as well.

My actions have been rooted in my personal experiences, but as I expanded my worldview and became exposed to other ways of thinking and doing things, I was able to take new actions and develop new solutions, too. This is the power of activism on women's rights – constantly learning, constantly growing and constantly pushing the boundaries of activism in new and creative ways. I think I'll continue to be busy for many years to come.

Ina May Gaskin, US Midwife, founder of “The Farm” receives “Right Livelihood Award” for 2011

2011-09-29T15:50:00.000-07:00

By Carol Downer

Hooray!

Everyone in the “natural childbirth” movement celebrates this award. The Swedish charity is giving formal recognition to the fact that birthing women in the U.S., their babies and their families face an urgent threat to their safety and their ability to have home birth or birth center without the social isolation and medical interference that comes with hospital birth.

The “natural childbirth movement” has been seeking to restore access to midwives and home birth for over a half-century, but its struggles and accomplishments are usually not publicized beyond its immediate circles, except for an occasional newspaper article that as a thinly disguised promotion of hospital birth which contains alarming quotes about the dangers of home birth.

Almost 40 years ago, Gaskin founded the Farm Midwifery Center, an intentional community in Tennessee, to take childbirth out of the firm grasp of the medical profession who have medicalized this normal physiological function. She joined a small but growing number of parents that were seeking “natural childbirth” and lay midwives that were risking arrest (or were actually arrested) for assisting women who gave birth at home.

At the time Gaskin founded The Farm, virtually all births in the U.S. took place in hospitals where birthing women were kept in isolation from their families, drugged and cut. With the invention of the fetal heart monitor, in which an electrode is placed in the fetus’ scalp, cesarean rates rose from 5% to 15% in most hospitals, because in its experimental stages, no one yet knew the significance of every blip on the screen, and so a cesarean was performed whenever anything unusual was seen, because no doctor wanted to risk a malpractice suit for ignoring an unusual blip that might indicate a serious complication.

Due to Gaskins’ and others’ pioneering work, today most states offer some form of licensure for midwives and highly motivated and well-situated parents are able to seek out and obtain the services of a midwife for their home, or birth center birth.

Sadly, the rate progress of the natural childbirth movement has been outspaced by that of the medical profession. Today, physicians (with the assistance of hospital certified nurse midwives which they control) routinely use drugs and surgery in a hospital setting. Over a third of babies are now delivered by cesarean section in the United States.

Perhaps the awarding of this well-deserved honor will highlight the need for all of us who see a U.S. woman’s right to have a un-interfered-with natural birth in a home or birth center setting as foundational to all other women’s rights, including other sexual and reproductive rights such as access to birth control and abortion.

Read Seven Stories Press Release

Read about leading organizations for Midwives
- Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA)
- Midwifery Education and Accreditation Council (MEAC)
- North American Registry of Midwives (NARM)
- The Big Push for Midwives

39th Anniversary of Gynecology Self-Help Clinics and women controlled health projects

2011-09-28T11:53:00.000-07:00

Message from Cathy Courtney: Greetings, thirty-nine years ago, I traveled to Iowa with an amazing group of women from CMU to attend the first women's self help conference. I was never quite the same after learning what I learned and meeting the women who gathered.

Some of us who attended this conference and/or became involved in the self help women's health movement, Our Bodies Ourselves study groups & related activities are gathering at my home (Detroit area) on Sunday, October 2, 2011 to share stories and break bread together. Please feel free to join us. We are especially hopeful that we will have women of all ages gather, those who were involved in this movement and those who weren't even born yet!!! A full spectrum of young and old! Please spread the word to women who might be interested in the US midwest. Housing available overnite :)

Invitation for a Gathering of Women to honor, celebrate and share stories about the early days of the 1970’s women’s health movement. Come celebrate the 39th Anniversary of Gynecology Self-Help Clinics and women controlled health projects. Hear about the first national conferences some of us attended in 1972 and 1974 in Iowa. The 40th anniversary year of Our Bodies Ourselves! Hear about how life changing it was for so many!

Herstoric gathering~ discussion~ reflection~projection: When did you participate in your first GynSelf-Help Clinic? When did you first read the OBOS? How did the feminist health movement influence your health, your life? How are you connected to current struggles for autonomy, health, single payer nat'l health plan, other health related projects & economic justice?

Share food & beverage, materials, photos, GynSHC slide show (courtesy of Chico Feminist Women's Health Center & Ginny Cassidy-Brinn), film, fun & the personal as political self-help stories...

Contact Host- Janice Fialka for more information at ruaw@aol.com or Cathy Courtney at HoustonC3Courtney@gmail.com. RSVP appreciated so we can plan for dinner. Look forward to seeing you!

RESPONSE TO CONCERNED MOMMA-TO-BE - RE: Letter to accompany LA Times’ article re Katie McCall’s conviction

2011-08-26T17:31:00.001-07:00

Email to Carol Downer and
Response from Carol Downer

Email from happymomma22:
Hi Carol,

I stumbled upon your blog site as I was researching my home birthing options in Los Angeles and was shocked and OUTRAGED to read your most recent posting about Katie McCall! My first instincts were to post but due to the sensitivity of the topic I thought it would be best to reach out to you. I am not an attorney nor a doctor. So please excuse any misused terminology.

You stated "The L.A. Times’ article states that both mother and baby are fine and that Katie McCall is now licensed as a midwife, therefore I fail to see the purpose behind this prosecution. "WOW! What a statement, especially from an attorney. At the time of the birth, the STUDENT midwife was NOT licensed, it doesn't matter what she is today.

"McCall assured the woman that she would contact a licensed midwife to supervise her when it came time for delivery, as required by state law." Need anyone say more? She knowingly broke the law. She knew the terms of her "training." The mother labored for hours and not once did the STUDENT attempt to call anyone else or re-suggest to the the mom to be that she's putting her and her baby at risk because she's not medically licensed. I understand a women's choice to chose but since when do patients education trump the education of a medical professional or in this case a NON licensed professional?

"In fact, since the shoulder getting “stuck” during birth constitutes one of the rare situations where expert assistance or technology are vital, it seems possible that McCall may have performed a tremendous service." Exactly, expert assistance, McCall was far from an expert; I highly doubt anyone would share these sentiments if we were reading about a death of mother and baby. Wouldn't McCall carrying/administering pitocin and stitches as a non licensed midwife illegal too? This case reeks of non professional/reckless behavior on the part of the STUDENT midwife. What she did was a huge dis-service to the midwifery professional and reputation. She behaved exactly as the stereotypical law breaking student midwife. We live in a county where laws are made to protect the innocent, McCall is far from innocent or protecting the public. She just happened to be LUCKY. NOTHING ELSE. Perhaps next time everyone would prefer to be reading manslaughter chargers.

"In my opinion, understanding these prosecutions can only be approached from a political perspective. The male-dominated medical profession has waged a relentless battle against midwives, ever since doctors have served the general public, not just wives of royalty and the wealthy elite, and presently midwives in the United States delivery only a small percentage of babies." Oh my goodness! She was put on trial by her peers and was given a fair trial - California's Operation Safe Medicine is comprised of MDs, Phds, LMs and JDs. She broke a law and we're not talking jwalking. "These" prosecutions are not political, they are a matter of public safety. If an attorney practices without a license there are consequences; the same for doctors who practice without a state license. If midwives want to be considered equals in the medical/professional community then they need to stop acting like idiots doing what they please and follow the laws that were put in place for this branch of medicine to survive and thrive. McCall put midwives two steps backwards in California. This has nothing to do with a witch hunt by other midwives, birthing community or "the male dominated" medical profession. If McCall was a man, the outcome would still be the same, guilty.

Unfortunately, there really is no organized, political effort to promote midwifery, doulas and to educate the public about the dangers of current obstetrical practices. The CDC is calling forth more midwives and Naturopathic Doctors, The AMA is publishing articles that home birthing is up by 20%, the UN is calling for breast feeding to be taught in the hospitals....Rome was not built in a day and you can't expect midwives to be received with credibility when they do things like break the law.

Again, I am a home birth advocate when done properly and legally. Please note that The Sanctuary, the birthing centre where Ms. McCall practiced which also houses an MD that has been sanctioned by the Medical Board until 2012 for having sex with his patient less than a week after removing a tumor after he medically advised her no sex for several weeks. Seems like the moral compass for these home birth professionals do not exist. http://www2.mbc.ca.gov/LicenseLookupSystem/PhysicianSurgeon/Lookup.aspx?licenseType=G&licenseNumber=52027. Birds of a feather flock together I guess. Again, I am a feminist at heart and fight for women's right but I am not going to fight for someone that puts any women or baby's life at risk and puts me two steps back from my male counterparts.

You also mentioned that this case was on a gag order. You should look on line under CourtUpdates on Facebook and you will see Katie McCall as an administrator of a closed group that informs other midwives, doulas and other birthing professionals of the on goings of the trial. This woman is wreckless!!!! You out of all people should understand that all those people in that courthouse and in the group should be held in contempt of court for talking about the case with each other and the birthing community via Facebook, regardless of guilty verdict.

Would love to hear from you.
Concerned Momma to Be

Response from Carol Downer
RESPONSE TO CONCERNED MOMMA-TO-BE
Hi: I was happy to get your letter in which you expressed shock and outrage at the comments I made about the trial and conviction of Katie McCall for practicing medicine without a license. I hope that your letter and my response is the start of a dialogue around the vital issue of how best to safeguard the health and well-being of babies and moms.

First, I want to make some general comments about how the law works and what I read in the paper and about people’s behavior at the trial that I observed.

Since I still have not learned the specifics of McCall’s behavior (are you saying that she administered pitocin or stitched the mother up?), I accepted the LA Times’ statement that the mother and baby were both recovered. As a practicing attorney, I know that the District Attorney has “prosecutorial discretion”. The public expects him to weigh the various factors in each case, such as whether the alleged illegal behavior resulted in physical harm, to reach a decision.

I also know that to convict someone of a crime (not just an infraction), the prosecutor has to show not just that someone did a certain thing, but also that they had a bad intent, or at least were reckless. The LA Times summary gives no facts which indicate McCall set out to deceive or that she showed no concern for the mother’s and baby’s well-being.

I was informed by others attending the trial that the Judge had ordered McCall to shut down her website, and the supporters were hesitant to fill me in on what was happening. They showed me a copy of the judge’s order that forbade observers to even express warmth or encouragement to the defendant. Regarding your statement about McCall statement on CourtUpdates on Facebook, how does that lead you to think that they were discussing the ongoings of the trial?

Second, you believe that laws are made to protect the innocent, and that the prosecution of Katie McCall was a matter of public safety. My view is that laws come about for a variety of reasons, but licensure laws are put there to protect the certain interest of certain professional groups as well as an unwary public, and may or may not involve public safety. Since McCall went on to become a licensed midwife (a fact that the jury was not aware of), how did McCall’s prosecution increase public safety?

I stand by my statement that there is no organized political effort to promote midwifery, doulas and to educate the public about the dangers of current obstetrical practices. Perhaps the CDC is calling for more midwives, but they are not lobbying to create more schools of midwifery or developing programs to educate more midwives, and CDC has no influence whatsoever on the various state legislators to implement legislation to fund and train midwives.

If you are a home birth advocate, I would be interested in working with you on ideas on how to stir up some real political support. C-section rates are skyrocketing and U.S. maternal and morbidity rates are abysmally high.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Carol Downer

Letter to accompany LA Times’ article re Katie McCall’s conviction

2011-08-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

By Carol Downer

I stumbled upon Katie McCall’s trial by accident. I was in the County Courthouse when Rebecca Pridiletto passed me in the hall and she told me about it. The trial was almost over, and I wasn’t able to hear the proceedings, so I wasn’t able to find out the bare facts until I read the L.A. Times’ article. There were about 20 women, mostly friends, family and fellow church members in attendance. When I asked where I could obtain more information about the trial, I was told that the Judge had forbidden any publicity, making Katie take down her website and had forbidden those in attendance from discussing what they observed in the courtroom with each other or anyone else.

I do not practice criminal law, so I had to do some quick legal research into “gag orders” and found that in California, they are disfavored and only issued when there are strong reasons why publicity would be harmful to the defendant getting a fair trial. There has to be notice, and the parties have a chance to oppose any motion for such a gag order. I do not know what happened in this case.

The L.A. Times’ article states that both mother and baby are fine and that Katie McCall is now licensed as a midwife, therefore I fail to see the purpose behind this prosecution. In fact, since the shoulder getting “stuck” during birth constitutes one of the rare situations where expert assistance or technology are vital, it seems possible that McCall may have performed a tremendous service.

In my opinion, understanding these prosecutions can only be approached from a political perspective. The male-dominated medical profession has waged a relentless battle against midwives, ever since doctors have served the general public, not just wives of royalty and the wealthy elite, and presently midwives in the United States delivery only a small percentage of babies.

Has this takeover benefitted women? Generally, I think not. Depending on local economic and cultural conditions, midwives have either been experienced women who shared a common lore regarding childbirth practices and provided birthing women with a high quality of services, or they sometimes were simply older women who supplemented their incomes by bringing their help and experience to birthing women, and their expertise was questionable. When doctors took over, sometimes the care women received was improved, but many, many times, it was not, and sometimes it was disastrous. Today, we see childbirth turned into a medicalized event, replete with drugs, surgery and isolation from loved ones and community.

Unfortunately, there really is no organized, political effort to promote midwifery, doulas and to educate the public about the dangers of current obstetrical practices. Midwifery is an old and honorable profession; not a social or political movement. In contrast, the medical profession is extremely well organized with it “code of silence”, and its paid lobbyists. They have used mystification of the birth process and parents’ fear of pain and death to convince the public that birth is a medical event and should only take place in a hospital, and they have used their money and political influence to get laws passed in every state to maintain their stranglehold on the “business” of childbirth.

As I find out more about this case, I will keep you posted.

LA Times article hyperlink - http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/la-midwife-convicted.html

My Abortion. My Life. Conversation Night

2011-07-07T13:54:00.000-07:00

My Abortion. My Life. Conversation Night
May 26, 2011
We want to share reports of My Abortion. My Life.'s successful Conversation Night as an inspirational tool to hopefully aid in developing your own speakout.

The website, My Abortion. My Life. is a public awareness campaign in Cleveland, Ohio - sponsored by Preterm, They seek to end the silence and shame surrounding abortion by creating a new and positive conversation about abortion in the lives of American women.

According to My Abortion. My Life.’s Facebook and Website, on May 26, 2011 My Abortion. My Life. held a Conversation Night at the B-Side Lounge in Cleveland Heights, which was attended by close to 100 people.

One of the organizers, Linda Jane, Director of Development and Communication of Preterm in Cleveland, told us the lounge was installed with 20 of Heather Ault's posters. Candles, flowers, food, and abortion songs added to the decor. Huge panels of paper hung for people to write on. “Several women came up to tell their stories. Many of the stories were funny. A mother and daughter talked about their mother’s abortion. Two women told their stories of serial abortions and the feelings involved. There was also a photo booth where women could have their pictures taken holding signs that said, ‘Abortion Saved My _____.’ They filled in the blank. “

Their website explains that My Abortion. My Life. “wants to promote a new dialogue, one that shifts the conversation from the rhetorical to the experiential, from the language of politics to the language of real women and men. Only through sharing our truths about abortion can we truly support women’s full range of reproductive options."

And Women's Health in Women's Hands fully agrees!

Please get in contact with us and let’s work to de-stigmatize abortion.

My Abortion. My Life. - myabortionmylife.org
Women’s Health in Women’s Hands - womenshealthinwomenshands.org/SpeakOut.htm

Self-Help for Sex

2011-06-08T15:51:00.000-07:00

CAROL DOWNER

What would happen if groups of laypeople examined each other's bodies and talked about their health-related experiences? What if they were all women and the part of the body they were examining was their genitals? Shocking? Dangerous? Frivolous? Or a totally new approach to the understanding of female sexuality and reproduction?

In 1971 in Los Angeles, several women, in turn, removed their pants, lay down and inserted a plastic vaginal speculum, looked at themselves with a mirror, and then allowed others in the group to look at their vaginal walls and uterine cervices using a flashlight. Throughout the evening, they freely shared experiences with one another. This type of session, which we named the self-help clinic, has been repeated by many groups of women throughout the United States and abroad. Meetings like this continued and, in the next few years, became the basis for the Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers, which includes centers in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Chico, California, and in Atlanta, Georgia, and Tallahassee, Florida.

By breaking the societal taboo of letting our genitals be viewed outside a medical or sexual setting, we have been able to let the feelings of shame (Greek for the genital area is pudendum, meaning "shame") fall away and to learn directly about our own bodies.

Since 1971, through participating in self-help clinics, writing and distributing health pamphlets and books, and establishing feminist women's health centers and women's clinics, self-helpers have amassed a new body of knowledge about the healthy functioning of woman's body, including improved fertility-detection methods, new and safer birth-control methods, natural home remedies for common problems of well women, and healthy alternatives to estrogen-replacement therapy in menopause.

The women's health movement, for which the self-help clinic is the training ground, has exposed many medical myths perpetrated by male physicians whose only knowledge of women's bodies is derived from medical textbooks, their clinical practices, or personal sexual contact. But of all aspects of women's health, certainly women's sexuality has been the most neglected and misunderstood by the male dominated medical profession and the related fields of psychotherapy and psychology. Despite some substantial contributions made by William Masters and Virginia Johnson and by Mary Jane Sherfey, whose book, The Nature and Evolution of Female Sexuality (1972), is based largely upon Masters and Johnson's work, the first reliable glimpse of women's sexuality in today's society has come from Shere Hit. In the Hite Report (1976), which consists of over 1000 responses to a lengthy questionnaire, Hite argued persuasively that women are "sexual slaves," habitually satisfying men's needs during sex and ignoring their own:

The fact is that the role of women in sex, as in every aspect of life, has been to serve the needs of others-men and children. And just as women did not recognize their oppression in a general sense until recently, just so sexual slavery has been an almost unconscious way of life for most women-based on what was said to be an eternally unchanging biological impulse. . . . Women are sexual slaves insofar as they are (justifiably) afraid to "come out" with their own sexuality, and forced to satisfy others' needs and ignore their own . . . The truth is that almost everything in our society pushes women toward defining their sexuality only as intercourse with men, and toward not defining themselves as full persons in sex with men. Lack of sexual satisfaction is another sign of oppression of women.

At first, self-help clinics concentrated on the urgent topics of birth control, breast surgery, and alternatives to steroid hormones. But in 1976, in conjunction with writing a book on women's health care, a group of six women in Los Angeles were selected by the Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers to spend several months studying the female sexual response and the structure and function of the sexual organ. Suzann Gage, an anatomical illustrator and member of the health center staff, brought in thick anatomy books in various languages for the group to consult. We sat on the floor and, using mirrors and flashlights, each carefully examined our genitals and compared them to the illustrations. First we found that although all of us had most of the structures pictured, the variation in size, proportion, coloration, texture, and shape of each component part gave each woman's genitals a markedly different appearance-different from one another, but especially different from the standard drawing. Among other differences, the drawings always show the opening that leads to the vagina as a gaping hole rather than the neatly closed opening that may or may not be visible, depending on the shape (or existence!) of the fourchette, a membranous fold of skin that stretches across the lower part of the opening. (See Figure 1, 2, and 3.)

As part of the study, some of the women masturbated to orgasm while being photographed so that the changes in the sexual organs during the sexual response cycle could be observed. These changes, while not as obvious as those that occur in the penis, are nevertheless pronounced and quite identifiable. Women at the Orange County FWHC also made motion pictures of sexual response. In some instances, the speculum was inserted and kept open throughout so that the changes in the vaginal walls and in the cervix could be seen during the phases of excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.

Careful comparison of living genitals to drawings largely based on dissections of dead tissues, combined with our observations of the sexual response cycle, enabled us to piece together a full description of the clitoris, the female organ. We learned that the clitoris is an intricate organ located in the crotch below the ischium bones (the bones we sit on), which flare out, forming a triangular space. It consists not only of the hooded glans, the shaft, and the crura, as generally believed, but also of the ligament that suspends these structures from the symphysis (or midline) of the pubic bone; the muscles that bound the triangle; the networks of nerves and blood vessels that branch into the clitoral structures; the spongy erectile bodies, such as the urethral sponge, the clitoral bulbs, and the perineal sponge; and the inner lips, which extend from the hood until they again join and form the fourchette just above the perineum between the clitoral opening to the vagina and the anus. (See Figures 4, 5, and 6.)

In self-examination, the clitoris can be distinguished from the surrounding vulva (the pubic mound and the outer lips) by the fact that it has no hair. The inner part of the clitoris extends to the depth of the hymen, which separates it from the vagina, except along the roof, where a pad of spongy erectile tissue, the urethral sponge, extends back into the vagina. By inserting the index finger and pressing against the ischium bones, the crura (or legs) and the clitoral muscles that extend from the shaft and the pubic bone can be felt as thick rubber bands. By inserting the finger a little deeper and pressing sideways, the soft clitoral bulbs can be felt.

During sexual excitement, the suspensory ligament shortens, pulling the glans and the shaft up under the hood and into the groove of the symphysis. The erectile tissue of the shaft and the crura (corpus cavernosum) fills with blood and becomes bone-hard. As stimulation continues, the muscles begin to tighten, and the soft erectile tissues (corpus spongiosum) of the urethral sponge, the perineal sponge, and the clitoral bulbs swell with blood, causing the vaginal opening to become smaller and to "sweat" and become very moist. (See Figure 7.)
During the plateau phase, erection and muscular tension increase and the inner lips often become bright red or wine-colored from vasocongestion. (See Figure 8.) At orgasm, the mucles (ischiocavernosus, bulbocavernosus, and transverse perineal) contract rhythmically four to eight times at four-fifths of a second. The whole clitoral pulsates as it muscles force the blood from its engorged tissues back into the body. (See Figure 9.) During resolution, the ligament stretches, the shaft returns to its usual position, and muscle tension gradually subsides. This sequence of events closely parallels those that occur in the penis, with its comparable but somewhat differently arranged structures.

In our study, we observed that Masters and Johnson's extremely important discovery, that the male and the female sexual responses are similar instead of complementary, applies to the structure and the function of the sex organs as well as to the generalized body responses of systemic changes, such as increasing heart rate, rise in blood pressure and respiration, nervous excitation, vasocongestion, and muscle tension. 1

Since the women participating in this project had no access to dissection rooms, they were forced to rely on Masters and Johnson, Sherfey, anatomy texts, the drawings of Robert Latou Dickinson (an artist-physician who interviewed and sketched thousands of his patients in the 1920s and 1930s), and the observation of their own bodies. Some people may quibble with the claim that the women discovered "something new" in this study, since all of the structures they identified as being part of the clitoris can be found described in one anatomy book or another, especially if one searches back over the last 75 years. In defense of Masters and Johnson, who failed to describe the clitoris fully and who instead designated most clitoral structures as being, somehow an extension of the vagina called the "orgasmic platform" and located in the "outer third of the vagina," the functional unity of the clitoris is totally obscured by the literally fragmented approach that anatomists use. (Feminists will be forever grateful, however, to Masters and Johnson's recognition of the vital role that the glans and the shaft play in orgasm.)

Anatomical artists, first of all, cut out and study sections of tissue and, unless they conceptualize structures as belonging to a unit, do not see them as a unit. Second, for purposes of illustrating certain parts, the artist omits others; therefore, anatomical drawings of cross sections of the body seldom show all of the structures. Certainly, no one illustration or set of illustrations we found included all of the clitoral structures. For example, the urethral sponge was missing from all illustrations and descriptions except in three texts: Testut (1931), Toldt (1928), and Netter (1970). The perineal sponge is never pictured; it is merely alluded to in Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1965). (See Figure 10.)

In any inquiry, the best test of theory is how well it fits the facts. As we described our understanding of how the sex organs work in self-help clinics, woman after woman has commented matter-of-factly, "Yes, that's how it is with me," not realizing how ignorant the medical profession has been of this simple truth: that the clitoris is an organ as complex and active as the penis. Also, another test is usefulness. After demonstrating self-examination and showing the parts of the clitoris and how it functions, discussions of our sexual experiences become much more concrete and specific. We now have a vocabulary and a conceptual framework to communicate with.

One of the major accomplishments of this group self-study project is to put to rest forever the controversy over clitoral or vaginal orgasms. Now that it is understood that the clitoral structures surround and extend into the vagina, the fact that women report pleasurable feelings deep in the vagina in no way contradicts Masters and Johnson's correct if inadequately pursued finding that all orgasms are of clitoral origin. The vagina is involved passively in the orgasm, and the pleasure that women receive from the thrusting of the penis comes from the sensations of the penis rubbing against the erect clitoris.

As part of our research, we gathered accounts of individual experiences. We were more interested in the actual sexual experiences than in feelings about sexuality. We found that some women experience the entire sexual response cycle from the time that they are toddlers. On the other hand, it became clear that many women do not experience orgasm until they are in their 20s or 30s or even later, or never. We found few women who experience orgasm regularly and dependably during coitus. Women agreed with the subjects of the Masters and Johnson study who reported that orgasm from masturbation is frequently stronger than from coitus. Of course, as feminists, we were not very concerned with whether or not the orgasm was obtained during coitus, or by manual or oral stimulation, or with a vibrator. Our aim was not to train ourselves to have orgasms in dull sexual sessions where the only clitoral stimulation is from the penis. We found that women usually strive to achieve orgasm during coitus to reassure the partner. In self-help clinics, one of my favorite questions to ask is 'Would everyone here who has never faked an orgasm, please raise your hand?" I have yet to see one hand raised.

Other feminists, many of whom participate in self-help, conduct therapy groups for women called preorgasmic groups. Rather than viewing women's sexuality solely in the context of heterosexual intercourse, they help women to learn to achieve orgasm through masturbation. These groups use a variety of approaches, but all include group discussion, instruction on the basic facts of the sexual response cycle, and practical tips on how to masturbate to orgasm. Women who participate in these groups have excellent results.

Women in self-help groups not only reexamined the emphasis on a woman's having an orgasm during coitus but reexamined the advice given to couples to aid the woman in achieving orgasm at that time in light of our improved understanding of the structure and function of the clitoris. A typical piece of therapists' advice is to have the woman sit astride the male, in order to bring her glans and shaft into closer proximity to his penis and public bone. While this advice is successful in many cases, especially if a couple work together conscientiously with the one goal being the woman's orgasm, it seems probable to us that the success comes more often from the woman's ability to maneuver freely and to control the amount of stimulation she receives and the man's sincere interest in helping her to achieve orgasm, rather than from direct stimulation of the glans and the shaft.

Of course, we talked to women who wanted-indeed, needed-very strong direct stimulation of the glans and shaft, but most seemed to prefer stimulation of the other parts of the clitoris instead. The penis is in good contact with the clitoris at all times in all positions. For example, when the male inserts the penis from behind, the penis is thrusting toward the urethral sponge, which is along the roof of the vagina. Also, many women have said that direct stimulation of the floor of the clitoris, the perineal sponge, gives maximum pleasure.

Misunderstanding the clitoris as merely the glans and the shaft, along with the patriarchal insistence that women rely only on penile stimulation for "normal" orgasms, has led to shocking consequences. Some therapists refer women for female circumcision (clitoridotomy) to have their clitoral hoods removed so that they can be more sensitive to the thrusts of the penis. One gynecologist, James Burt of Dayton, Ohio, has even developed a two-hour operation for surgically redesigning the vagina, referred to as the "reborn Burt vagina." In addition to moving the glans and the shaft closer to the clitoral opening, he narrows and tightens the vagina, cuts the pubococcygeal muscle (which forms the floor of the pelvis and through which the vagina runs), and removes the hood. Some of the women who have this surgery are very satisfied, but others have had problems, such as vaginismus, afterward.

These operations are reminiscent of surgeries and mutilations performed on women's clitorises in the 19th century-and even today in a few countries. As far as we could determine, most of these surgeries were limited to excising the glans and some or all of the shaft (although an operation called infibulation can include the inner lips also). Surely these mutilations had a devastating impact on women's ability to have sexual pleasure and to achieve orgasm, but, physiologically it would seem that since most of the clitoris was left intact, including extensive networks of nerves, blood vessels, erectile bodies, and muscles, orgasm would still have been possible. Masters and Johnson even cite a case where a woman had orgasm despite amputation of the shaft. As for men, those who have had the outer shaft amputated are still capable of having orgasm.

As part of our sex research, we reviewed current sex theraphy practices and discussed them in self-help groups. One criticism women have consistently made of therapeutic measures is that often the assumption is made that it is possible for a woman to have a carefree, uninhibited sex life despite the difficulties she faces in a sexist society: "Oh, sure, just casually lie down in the field of wildflowers and have sex! What about birth control? Or is everybody supposed to use the Pill or IUD?" Or, "Well, I'm forty, and frankly, most men my age or even older just want casual sex with me and they seek out younger women to have even semipermanent relationships with." We came up with a list of institutions, laws, and practices that reinforce women's oppression or sexual repression; our evaluation of this list amounted to a broad-scale condemnation of patriarchal society. Any therapist who tells a women "it is up to her" and implies that she is responsible for her "hang-ups" is merely rubbing salt in the wounds inflicted by her church, which preaches the evil of sexuality, especially women's; by schools, which withhold sex education from her, except for perhaps a lecture on menstruation in junior high and another lecture on birth control in high school; and the ubiquitous pornography that degrades her.

Current sex therapy that relies primarily on sex histories and taeching techniques to overcome problems such as vaginismus, inability to achieve orgasm, or inability to maintain an erection seems to be of most help to men and women. Although Masters and Johnson pioneered this type of therapy, their excellent works is tainted with sexism in their use of prostitutes for research and the use of women as surrogate partners.

Like the use of surrogate partners, other tools of the sex therapist are less acceptable to feminists-tools like permission giving, advising, role playing or setting examples by role modeling and desensitization. Permission giving is the reverse side of the authoritarian coin that has denied people the right to decide their own sexuality. Advising is only as good as the adviser, and our experience is that therapists are as much a part of our culture as anyone else and pass on their own biases and hang-ups; the same criticisms applies to role playing and role modeling. Desensitization involves bombarding the clients with films of tapes of explicit scenes or shocking words to numb them to any feelings of shock or embarrassment. Feminists see a problem with these methods if a woman, in the process of losing her upsetness, also loses her very necessary armor against hurtful influences. Sexist jokes and pornography are more than distasteful; they shame and humiliate women and support sexist practices that cause harm to women.

If sex therapists, male or female, are sincere in wanting to help their female clients, they would be wise to consult feminists, especially those in the women's health movement, to reduce to the minimum their inevitable sexism. Unless sex researchers, counselors, and therapists raise their consciousness about women's oppression, they will perpetuate the models of heterosexuality that suppress women's sexuality. For example, Multi Media Resource Center puts out a series of films showing people having sex. One film starts out with a couple riding their motorcycle on a country road (of course, the man is in the lead, but perhaps that is nit-picking). As they turn down the lane toward their house, they dismount and lie down together among the leaves. The man, Rich, playfully pulls at Judy's clothes. She resists, he persists, and he finally succeeds in disrobing her. Then, in a scene on the sundeck next to their pool, he first applies suntan lotion to her and incorporates it as foreplay, but then he starts teasing her, then chases her and wrestles her down to the mat. He mounts her and embarks on a vigorous (actually borderline violent) coital session. Then, after his orgasm, he picks her up and throws her into the pool! When I asked a representative of the organization who made the film, he sidestepped any responsibility for the mock rape format by saying that this was the way this couple had sex and that their aim was not to judge but to record.

As part of their well-woman health-care program, the Women's Choice Clinic of the Feminist Women's Health center in Los Angeles has initiated a special self-help program where women can learn in groups about the female organs and sexual response. During the group session, which lasts two to three hours, women do self-examination and identify the parts of the vulva, clitoris, vagina, uterus, egg tubes, and ovaries. The phases of the sexual response cycle are presented. Each woman prepares an extensive sexual "herstory" as the group share their experiences and problems. Specific techniques for enhancing sexual enjoyment are demonstrated. The difference between these groups offered at the clinic and at the self-help clinics is that although all self-help clinics talk about sexuality to a greater or lesser extent, and some self-help clinics have chosen to concentrate on sexuality, the clinic sessions offer women the opportunity to come together for the express purpose of learning more about sex.

So a century after Freud asked plaintively, "What do women really want?", women are coming together and overcoming patriarchally instilled and socially enforced taboos to find out what type of sexuality they really want, and of course, from there, it is a short step to demanding that institutions change so that both men and women will be free to express their sexuality to other human beings constructively, joyously, and for mutual satisfaction.

1 The vagina, uterus, uterine ligaments, egg tubes, and ovaries-as well as the breasts, indeed, the whole body-are involved in female sexual response. We are merely focusing on the clitoris. For a detailed description of the clitoris, compatible with the observations in our study, see Masters and Johnson (1966, pp. 56, 60-61).

REFERENCES
-Hite, The Hite report. New York: Dell Publishing, 1976, pp. 419-420.
-Kinsey, A.C., Pomeroy, W. B., Martine, C.E., and Gebhard, P.H. Sexual behavior in the human female. New York: Pocket Books, 1965, p. 577
-Masters, W., and Johnson, V. Human sexual response. Boston: Little, Brown, 1966, pp. 56, 60-61.
-Murry, L. Building a better vagina. Playgirl, 1977, 5, 40+.
-Netter, F. H. The CIBA collection of medical illustrations, Vol 2. Summit, N.J.: CIBA Pharmaceutical Company, 1970.
-Sherfey, M. J. The nature and evolution of female sexuality. New York: Random House, 1972.
-Testut, J. L. Traite d'anatomie humaine (ed. 8, revised and enlarged by A. Latarjet), Vol. 5: Appareil urogenital peritoine. Paris: Doin, 1931.
-Toldt, C. Anatomisher Atlas. Berlin and Wien: Urban and Schwarzenberg, 1928.

Vessel The Film

2011-05-25T14:02:00.000-07:00

Donate To and Visit: vesselthefilm.com

Women on Waves, sail a ship around the world to countries where abortion is illegal. Using a hotline for communication, the activists pick up women at the port and transport them twelve miles offshore, just outside of domestic waters, where doctors on board can administer safe and legal medical abortions at sea.

Message from Diana Whitten: "After producing and collecting footage from 10 years of campaigns and a three month initial editing phase, I am now on hiatus from editing to find the last of the post-production and finishing funds. As an independent filmmaker - who has done this project primarily as a labor of love, but can't move forward without support - I feel the more people who know and care about the project, the closer I will get to finding this funding.

A few days ago my TEDx talk, about the film and media strategies I am working with WoWeb to develop, was posted here: http://www.tedxamazonia.com.br/tedtalk/diana-whitten"

Donate To and Visit: vesselthefilm.com

Feminist: Stories from the Women's Liberation Movement

2011-04-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

Project by Jennifer Lee

From Carol Downer: "Several years ago, Jennifer Lee interviewed me for her film about feminists in the 70's. Her interview questions were quite good. She is now ready to release and distribute it. I will be sending her a small contribution and I hope many people do, so that she can complete the project.

Please forward this to anyone you think would be interested."

Link: Feminist: Stories from the Women's Liberation Movement

CIMS "Reframing Birth and Breastfeeding: Moving Forward" Conference

2011-01-31T11:49:00.001-08:00

March 11-12, 2011 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Carol Downer will attend the CIMS conference in March. She will have a booth on behalf of the Women's Health Specialists and Women's Health in Women's Hands. If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments re: Carol's trip or booth please feel free to email whwh@womenshealthinwomenshands.org.

FROM CIMS: As our Valentine's Day gift, we're extending the deadline for registrants to take advantage of reduced Early Bird registration rates through February 14, 2011.

Another way that we are sharing the love this Valentine's Day is by offering an exceptional conference program. The conference program includes more than 22 hours of educational programming, and attendees may qualify for more than 13 contact hours for their participation. Speakers include Eugene Declercq, Miriam Labbok, Penny Simkin, Susan Ludington, Lori Dorfman, Best for Babes' Bettina Forbes and Danielle Rigg, Bernice Hausman, Jacqueline Wolf, and many more. That's a lot to love!

BACORRs "Celebrate Choice - Pro Choice Parade"

2011-01-24T14:10:00.000-08:00

The following are photographs taken on January 22, 2011 at BACORRs "Celebrate Choice - Pro Choice Parade" in San Francisco, CA.

Visit BACORRs website for further information on the organization.

January 22 & 23, 2011

2011-01-20T15:22:00.000-08:00

Join Carol Downer in the following events:

January 22, 2011 - San Francisco, CA

January 23, 2011 - Los Angeles, CA

Revolution Books/Libros Revolucion Presents: "Abortion, Sexuality, & Women's Liberation" at 2PM. Visit their Facebook page for more information: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146320422088833&index=1

Assertiveness in the dr.'s office

2010-12-30T13:53:00.000-08:00

Published 1975, in THE FEMINIST WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER REPORT (Vol. 1 No.2)

by Francie Hornstein

The following information is meant for women going to clinics or doctor's office in areas where feminist health services are not available. These suggestions may help you assert your rights as a consumer of health services. They also provide us with defenses against the sort of professionalism which prevents us from having access to informaiton about our own bodies as well as control over our lives. These defenses are in now way permanent solutions, but measures to be used until women regain full control of the field of women's medicine.

1. All people have a legal right to read their own medical charts and records. You may also ask for a copy of your records.

2. You have a right to full and complete explanation of all examinations, treatments and medications. This includes informing you of possible risks, side effects, effectiveness and experimental nature of any medical care you receive.

3. It is often a good idea to call a clinic or doctor before your actual visit to ask some key questions: cost of various procedures, office routines, billing and insurance collection policies, if Medi-Cal or Medi-Caid are accepted, etc.

4. If you are addressed by your first name by office personnel (includding the doctor) you should feel free to relate to them on a first name basis also.

5. Married women have full rights to any and all medical treatment without the consent of their spouse. In most states this includes abortion, V.D. treatment, and sterilization procedures., If you are unsure about the laws in your state, consult a lawyer or a legal aid office.

6. In California, single women who are legal minors (under 18 years of age) are eligible for Medi-Cal for payment for the cost of an abortion. In most situations, this can be done without the consent or knowledge of parents.

7. A woman does not have to be a certain age or have a certain number of children in order to have an elective sterilization procedure. If you are denied the procedure on these grounds, it may be the policy of the doctor or hospital. Consult a lwayer or feminist group to pressure the facility or doctor to change. Also, check the laws of your state.

8. You have a right to read any literature accompanying any medication you are given. This literature, formerly included for th edoctor, often gives more complete information about the drug or device, the possible side effects and contra-indications (reasons some people should not take the drug). You may want to ask to see this literature or the Physician's Desk Reference, a book which includees this information.

9. You have a right to have all of your questions answered to the best of the ability fo the physicians or health workers.

10. If you were referred to the doctor or clinic by a women's center, women's group or a friend, you should mention that fact. A doctor may be more "on guard" to be on good behavior if he/she knows that more business may be gained or lost through your report back to the original referral source.

11. Take a friend with you if you wish. It always helps to have the support of a friend to serve as a patient advocate.

12. When you meet the doctor for the first time, shake hands and greet him/her. Any indication that you intend to be an ACTIVE participant in the visit will help in breaking the tradition of the patient as a passive object.

13. Try to learn as much basic information about your own body as you can. The more familiar you are with the anatomy and functioning of your body, the more able to assert yourself you will be.

* The document is also available for download (pdf) on our Self-Help Clinic page.

WHERE IS MELINDA GATES GOING WITH BREASTFEEDING?*

2010-12-29T11:36:00.000-08:00

*The following is an excerpt by Carol Downer. This is part of developing and constructing a Childbirth and Lactation webpage on Women's Health in Women's Hands. We welcome any and all comments. Thank you.

I want to share the continued research that I'm doing into the Women Deliver Conference to discover what the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are planning for mothers and babies throughout the world and decide whether we should welcome this or organize against it.

Here is a YouTube video of a 13-minute excerpt of the 60 Minutes video interview of Melinda Gates in which they attribute high infant mortality to midwives using non-sterile instruments and say that they lay newborns on cold, dirt floors. Now, supposedly these rates have improved since they have taught the midwives to use sterile razor blades to cut the umbilical cord and they've taught them to wrap the newborn in a blanket, and infant mortality has gone down.

Now I want to ask you to look at some websites about Kangaroo Care, a practice of laying the naked newborn directly on the mother's bare chest, to see that this is the more advanced, enlightened way to stabilize a newborn, especially a low-birth-weight one. The mother's body keeps the baby warm, encourages breathing, and when the baby squirms and roots around, it will find the mother's nipple by itself within an hour or so, thus securing the best nutrition and "securing its safety in its mother's arms".

• Kangaroo Care - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_care
• Dr. Bergman - http://www.kangaroomothercare.com/drbergman.htm

What a difference between the Western-style medical approach of teaching "ignorant midwives" to keep the baby warm in a blanket, and the respectful, supportive approach of letting the baby have access to its Mom.

A personal note: I bottle-fed my first two babies, because I was told I had no milk (in fact, they gave me DES to dry up my milk. A nurse who had breast fed showed me techniques to "help" my baby nurse). I then went on to breast feed my other children and always passed along this knowledge to other mothers. I assumed that this was a cultural, woman-to-woman tradition. Imagine my surprise when I saw an 8 minute film a few months ago showing a brand-new newborn wriggle around on its mother's belly, crawling by fits and starts up until it "latched on" to the nipple.

I'm also enclosing the information so that you can order this 8 minute film to see this for yourself. Also, we hope to include a minute or two of this footage on the new page on my website, http://www.womenshealthinwomenshands.org/.

• breastfeeding - baby's choice - http://www.healthychildren.cc/skinlatchsuite.pdf

Abortion Speak Out Kit

2010-12-16T16:50:00.000-08:00

It's Time to Come Out of the Closet

For more information, we recommend our Speak Out page.

Dr. Andrew Rutland

2010-12-07T16:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Pro-Choice Movement,

Dr. Rutland is an obstetrician-gynecologist who is currently on probation. In July 2009 a patient receiving a paracervical block (local anesthesia) had a severe reaction and ultimately passed 6 days later. The Los Angeles County Coroner's office closed the case after autopsy ruled her death as accidental. Under pressure from anti-abortionists, Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran - Chief Medical Examiner changed the mode of death from accidental to homicide. The reasons are connected to technical violations of practice, which the department disapproves of, but are NOT connected to this event.

This case is about the CA Medical Board's attempt to close down an abortion provider very much like Dr. Bruce Steir in 1997. Originally charged with 2nd degree murder, in April 2000 Dr. Steir bargained for involuntary manslaughter.

We currently do not have an up-to-date on Dr. Rutland's case. But we do urge that people be extremely critical of this case and any other case where anti-abortionists are behind the attack.

Please read the following articles:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rutland-227209-board-documents.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/08/local/la-me-doctor8-2010jan08

And, if you'd like further information please contact Dr. Rutland at drandrewrutland@yahoo.com

Thank you.

SELF-HELP CLINIC Part II

2010-11-18T10:28:00.000-08:00

Copyrighted 1971

Much has happened since we first wrote our Self-Help Clinic article last summer E.W. July, 1971. At that time, under Carol Downer's direction, we had been meeting for about four months evolving a concept that would have far reaching effects. Since early spring, first working within women's liberation cell groups, then expanding to community women's church groups, Y.W.C.A. groups, and then taking the concept across the country, we are pleased to announce that over 2,000 women (including a group in London, England begun by a Connecticut Self-Help sister), have been introduced to self-examination and the Self-Help Clinic concept. Little did we realize that first night when we all agreed to confront our physical hang-ups in a physical way, that we were all to share real sisterhood in a very meaningful way. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers knew well the meaning of sisterhood. Mothers, daughters and aunts would meet together to share their womanly experience and be ready to help one another through their physical crises. Since grandmother's time, we have lost the closeness of sisters' experiences and helpful hands. This, along with being denied access to modern knowledge, has left us without knowledgeable good preventative health care. The Self-Help concept of self-examination is based on this reintroduction of sisterly sharing of experiences and knowledge in a commonsense, honest manner. Collective knowledge used within close sisterly groups that we call The Self-Help Clinic, have already had positive results as valuable preventative health care measures.

The Self-Help Clinic consists of 3 meetings; usually an evening a week for three weeks. These meetings deal primarily with learning self-examination with the help of all the sisters in the group. This is a very meaningful sharing experience for all, since we learn what is normal by having the opportunity to examine many women, under well-conditions. Occasionally we will have a sister who has a more serious problem and having caught it within self-examination, is encouraged to seek professional help. The Self-Help Clinic provides the opportunities for women to confront the many myths, misconceptions, and misinformation that we have been fed our entire lives. Being able to examine ourselves in a group situation gives us the first real concrete opportunity to compare the "text book" with reality. This is also the time when we learn to recognize cervical cap changes (in color, tone and other signs) in one another. Each woman during the first session has learned to insert her own speculum for the self-examination procedure and keep this speculum for continuous use. We also learn to give bi-manual (two hands) pelvic examinations by the 3rd evening. Looking at diagrams of our pelvic organs and being able to touch them and know their structure manually, gives us a far greater understanding of our bodies. We also spend the sessions reading and discussing a variety of written material, much of it brought in by the members of the group. We use the Birth Control Handbook as a major source for discussion and reference.

One major learning skill we have readily available is being able to recognize what is "normal". Since the meeting are primarily for women who want to learn about their own bodies, we have the perfect opportunity to see many, many normally healthy women. Contrary to clinics' and physicians' experiences (they have been trained and continue to work with patients suffering with some kinds of symptoms of illness), we are in the most fortunate position to learn to recognize what is a well-woman. By being able to recognize what is well and normal, we are better skilled to recognize that which is abnormal. It is interesting to note that Dr. Donald Ostergard of Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, Calif. * has been medical director for a similar program providing "book" and clinical training for women with similar non-medical backgrounds. His findings show that non-medical personnel with a high percentage of accuracy, can recognize deviations from normal. For example; Vulvar lesions, 89%, breast lesions, 85%, vaginal well muscle breakdown, 90% plus, uterine and surrounding structural abnormalities, 90%, antiflexed (elbowed backward) uterus, 90% plus. These are very high percentages of accuracy. Dr. Ostergard explains that his family planning patients are generally well patients who have come into the clinic for birth control information. His training program for the women paramedics stress normal breast and pelvic examinations. When a deviation from normal is found, the patient is referred to the physician. It is not important that the trainee recognize the exact nature of the abnormality. Dr. Ostergard's findings agree with our Self-Help Clinics' similar opportunities for well-women examinations: Women with varying non-medical backgrounds with sufficient training opportunities for examining well-women, can effectively recognize abnormal conditions.

How much better off we are, being able to recognize the unusual and to confidently make arrangements to get professional help; compared to remaining in ignorance until our problems have progressed to the point of seriousness and possible permanent damage. The Self-Help Clinic concept also helps us learn to take better overall care of our bodies. We stress breast examination and strongly encourage yearly Pap smears for cancer detection. We have found that, just like a sore throat, when we recognize an early infection or inflammation, some kind of personal care which includes lots of rest for our body, often connects the problem.

The Advanced Self-Help Clinics

One of the most exciting outgrowths of the Self-Help Clinics is in the development of advanced groups who have dedicated themselves to implementation and research. These groups feel that it is time that we women do the deciding on what we want in research areas on better health care for women. A large number of these women are guiding new Self-Help Clinics, sharing their experience with newer sisters to the concept, as well as perfecting their paramedic training skills. Quality libraries with up-to-date material and references on research into women's health needs, is another area of implementation. Another advanced Self-Help Clinic has published our "Ho To Start Your Own Self-Help Clinic" booklet which is available to anyone or groups interested in starting a Self-Help Clinic. There is presently a sizeable number of advanced, very dedicated and brave women who are determined to research out the possibilities of menstrual extraction. Let us here, clear up any misconceptions involving the experimentations being done within these advanced groups. And that is, menstrual extraction is not a euphemism for abortion. When the Self-Help Clinic means abortion we refer to it as abortion. This is a most important point. Our advanced groups must not be misrepresented if they are going to continue to work effectively for all women. These dedicated women, working and learning together are providing valuable information in the skills of menstrual extraction. Most of them seem to quite comfortable extract on the first day of their flow. We are told that a policy of these groups is that at no time is a sister allowed to experience discomfort. We are also told that it is almost unnecessary to mention the need for caution and gentleness, although both are major considerations in every case. Caution and gentleness seem to be almost instinctive.

While working within one of the advanced Self-Help Clinics, Lorraine Rothman found that the device that the group was attempting to use at that time needed vast improvement. It consisted of a simple syringe specially constructed to hold vacuum by the pull-back plunger; some plastic tubing; and a specially constructed small bored flexible cannula. (Neither the tubing used in manufacturing the cannula nor the finished cannula are available through laboratory or surgical suppliers. It is specially made by a large bio-instrument manufacturer and sold for a very high price.) Lorraine decided that since the syringe fell apart so easily causing air and fluid to back up into the uterus, she would devise another that would, 1) Provide a portable and continuous vacuum without back up worry, 2) Provide a syringe that need not be specially constructed, and 3) Provide a by-pass collection bottle which is a must since menstrual flows vary from woman to woman. She also realized the need to have ready access to the specially manufactured high quality, semi-flexible cannulas. They cannot be purchased at local lab houses, standard lab catalogs, nor can they be improvised out of the hardware store or drug store supplies. Lorraine's invention, tagged "Del'-Em", presently has a patent pending in hopes of keeping it within the women's movement as well as to encourage other women to put their heads and hearts to work for the movement. The semi-rigid cannula, which is a critical component of Del'-Em, when chemically sterilized, can be inserted through the undilated cervix. The cannula will bend to conform to the uterine walls without breaking or losing its flexibility and yet is not hard enough to damage the uterine lining. In addition, the cannula bore is large enough to facilitate removal of the menses. The research in these advanced groups is conducted under the guidance of medically trained personnel within clinical settings. They learn hospital and clinically acceptable sterile techniques under careful guidance. They also have access to the specially built cannulas and use only them. The women examine each other carefully to determine whether the procedure of menstrual extraction is safe for each. In this way they learn that a select group of women are eligible for the procedure. The following conditions, which are screened very carefully, are ineligible: Retroflexed (elbowed backwards) or antiflexed (elbowed foreward) uteruses, serious infections, polyps, extensive scarring, endometriosis and double uteruses. The Advanced Self-Help Clinics have also found that there is no way for a woman, by herself, to know her exact uterine conditions. Sisterhood is Safety: Safety is Sisterhood. In addition, continued research with Del'-Em indicates that group experience, knowledge, cooperation and sisterly concern improves the kit's efficiency. It would be irresponsible, here, to give step by step written directions in menstrual extraction. Just as in learning to sail a boat, it can't be done just by reading a book. It takes a seasoned sailor along to instruct with a properly outfitted vessel. The Advanced Self-Help Clinic groups, some of whom have been experimenting with Del'-Em for almost a year, know by personal experience that if this movement is to succeed, it will-only through SISTERHOOD. Groups of sisters learning from sisters and helping other sisters to fully realize their control over their own bodies is a very meaningful and workable concept. The idea of a "kit in each woman's private bathroom" is anti-sisterhood and anti-women's liberation. By being a select item for one woman only, within the confines of her own four walls, and without the collective help and support of her sisters, everyone and especially the movement looses. The concept of Self-Help stresses Sisterhood that makes possible the benefits from collective knowledge, collective experiences, collective training and especially the sisterly concern for one another. When it is necessary to travel for more extensive experiences or information, we do. Lastly, the Self-Help concept emphasizes competent medical backup and the use of safe equipment at all times.

We are seeing, today, unbelievable gains springing from this movement of sisterhood. We also forsee that it will take continued dedication by all sisters, vast investments of time, motivation, enthusiasm, and $$ for this movement to succeed. Throwing off the oppression of centuries takes total commitment and sisterhood.

The West Coast Sisters

* "Family Planning and Cancer Screening Services as Provided by Paramedical Personnel, A Training Program", by Donald R. Ostergard, M.D., AM. Assoc. Plan. Parent. Phys., Kansas City, Mo., April 5-6, 1971.

A NEW DEFINITION OF THE CLITORIS

2010-11-16T16:56:00.000-08:00

Published Originally in Women's Health Movement Papers, May 1981

Visit Our Anotomy web page for more detail

In 1976, a self-help group spent several months studying the sexual response and the structure of the female sexual organ. On the basis of these observations and reading of anatomy texts, we now define the clitoris, the female sex organ, as being much, much more than a miniature penis, or various assorted structures collectively referred to as "the vulva" and the vagina.

Superficially, the clitoral shaft and glans resembles a miniature penis, but it does not have the same structure as the penis. It does not, as the penis does, have two types of erectile tissue, several sets of muscles and two bulbs. The new definition of the clitoris does include these homologous structures. The tiny shaft and glans, defined as the clitoris by the male medical profession cannot produce an orgasm in the same way a penis can. The clitoris, as newly defined, work together as an organ to produce the sexual response cycle of excitement, plateau, orgasm and resolution as described by William Masters and Virginia Johnson in their famous sex studies in the fifties and sixties.

Introducing the Clitoris

The clitoris is bounded by the vulva, which includes the pubic mound, the outer lips and the hairy area around the anus. The clitoris, covered with hairless skin which is dotted with sebaceous oil glands, consists of the inner lips, hood, glans and shaft, legs, muscles, urethral sponge, perineal sponge, suspensory ligament and the hymen.

Looking at the clitoris with your legs spread apart you will see the inner lips joining at the top of the frenulum which is attached to the hood. This area, right where the clitoris joins the pubic mound, is called the commissure. Many women placed the flat of their fingers over the commissure to apply pressure to the clitoral shaft to masturbate. The hood partially covers the small rod-shaped shaft topped by the glans, which varies in size but is about the size of a pea. The shaft lies in a groove on the underside of the pubic bones, and it thus protected from injury. During sexual arousal, the suspensory ligament which extends down on the pubic symphysis swells, becomes shortened, and pulls the erect shaft up over the symphysis. The effect of this pulling up of the shaft is often to make the clitoral glans seem to disappear under the hood.

The shaft divides at its base into two legs (crura) which extend down and are attached behind the ischium bones (these are the bones that flare out; the bones we site on. Over these bones lie two sets of muscles which form the sides of an equilateral triangle. Another set of muscles is stretched across to form the muscles contract rhythmically several times, squeezing out the blood of the congested tissues forcefully, causing the intensely pleasurable sensations of orgasm.

You can see the opening of the urethra (the meatus) just above the clitoral opening to the vagina. Behind this urethral opening is the urethral sponge which encases the urethra and runs along with ceiling of the vagina, protecting it from pressure, such as might result from fingers or a thrusting penis.

At the base of the clitoris, you can see the inner lips join, forming a loose curtain of skin, the fourchette, that in some women, stretches across the clitoral opening. In others, the skin is very loose or may even be stretched or torn from childbirth. Just below the clitoral opening to the vagina is the perineal sponge which is approximately one inch thick. The hymen may partially cover the clitoral opening to the vagina or it may be stretched or even torn. During self-examination with a speculum, you can see the toothy projection of the hymen about an inch or two within.

The anal sphincter muscle, the circular muscle which closes the anus, also tenses up during excitement and plateau phases and contracts during orgasm.

*Labels in bold face type are parts of Clitoris. Clitoris illustration researched by: Carol Downer, Suzann Gage, Sherry Schiffer, Francie Hornstein, Lorraine Rothman, Lynn Heidelberg and Kathleen Hodge.

Mirror Flashlight and Speculum

2010-11-11T10:39:00.001-08:00

In 1971 a woman named Carol Downer took a speculum from an illegal abortion clinic in Los Angeles, went to her home and using a mirror and a flashlight, looked at her own cervix.

She was the mother of six children, had had an illegal abortion and had never seen her own cervix. She saw where her babies had passed through, where her menstrual flow had come from, and what the doctors had commented on over the years. It was a very enlightening moment for her.

What she did with that knowledge was revolutionary.

-Women's Health Specialists

Self-Help Clinic

2010-11-04T16:23:00.001-07:00

Copyright 1971

Visit Our History, Self Help Clinic, Staying Well, Our Anatomy, Our Periods, Reclaiming Abortion, Our Birth Control, and Library web pages for further detailed information.

A group of women not long ago banded together to seriously consider some mutual questions concerning the care of their reproductive and sexual organs. It all came about because each of us seemed to be getting the same kind of no help from our physicians. So we decided to just rap, share experiences, and maybe as a group seek out some answers on our own. Our results were so mind blowing that we want to share them with our sisters in hopes of encouraging others to do the same. Some of the problems we first attacked were: how can I recognize vaginal infections early, before they become so advanced that I have to visit a physician and probably wind up on antibiotics$$$. Can I see early infections, especially yeast (Monilia) effectively and inexpensively? How do I recognize yeast? What does syphillis look like, and can I recognize gonorrhea -- in spite of what the physicians say? Are there marked changes on the cervix of my uterus during my 28-30 day menstrual cycle? If so, does the cervix also show change due to pregnancy, and if so how soon can I see the change? We realized early in our rap sessions that being able to recognize very early pregnancy would be a great asset if we were to decide to terminate the pregnancy. Each of us at one time or another had been told by a physician that chemical test for pregnancy wasn't foolproof. We would really have to wait for at least the 4th and 5th week after the missed period to know for sure. Too long, we all decided!

Another point in which we were all up-tight about was the present methods of health care for women. For instance: I've got an itch. So I've gotta call the doctor. When I call, the receptionist asks, "What's wrong?" and proceeds to make an appointment from one to two weeks hence. So I wait. Take sitz baths, douches, and so sex. Sometimes the waiting alone helps, usually not. Often the bladder becomes infected while waiting for the appointment interval to pass. Finally I get to see the physician and his comment on examining me, draped in a sheet so that I couldn't even if I wanted to, -- "Usual female infection, take the antibiotic prescription and come back in two weeks."$$$ When I ask him if I can see what the infection looks like, the physician is appalled at the idea. "You shouldn't worry your little head about this kind of thing. After all, isn't that what I'm here for?" So I return in 2 weeks$$$, and maybe it's cleared and maybe it isn't. Another kind of antibiotic is prescribed and another appointment is made$$$. I again ask for specific information about the infection and by now the answer usually comes in Greek (which I am obviously not very fluent in.)

With pregnancy it's pretty much the same thing. See him, wait, and come back. $$$ I know that the longer I wait the more difficult it will be on my body to terminate the pregnancy. In addition, different states' laws offer time limiting restrictions.

So the women got together. We rapped about our common medical encounters. Then we made a discovery on that very first meeting. In order to better understand what we were talking about we had to look. So we encountered our first, last and only hangup in the entire rap/self-help clinic. And we did it with the help of 5% courage and 95% curiosity. Up on the table each of us went. Some of us were a little shy going up, all of us thoroughly with it by the time we got down. All of us were learning about our sexual organs and realizing that we were not only sharing our answers but were learning things about the cervix that was a gold mine of information. No wonder physicians have been reluctant to share the information$$$. We realized that there was a great deal that we could do for ourselves in personal health care, long before it becomes to see a physician, and all because we learned a very simple self-examination procedure. We were able to purchase plastic speculums (one for each woman). The speculum opens the vaginal cavity to allow examination of the vaginal walls and the cervix.

With the use of a lamp and mirror, it became quite simple to examine ourselves for irritations, infections, discharges, changes on the cervix. Since the cervix has essentially no pain nerve endings, we realized that it was quite easy to have an infection developing without giving any signs. Not until a heavy discharge has reached the vulva (outer lips) or burning and itching is taking place, do we realize what's going on. But by then it is too late to do anything but go through the ritual of visiting a physician at this convenience$$$. We also recognized that there are differences in the cervix, depending on the size of the woman, numbers of children, etc. We were able to easily recognize problems early so as to seek medical help quickly, before the problem becomes a major disease. Results of our self-help clinic were so obvious that some of us are now taking methods and going into neighboring communities to form new self-help clinics. Everywhere we go we are finding the same responses: "Wow! No wonder the physicians haven't wanted us to know our bodies." $$$ "Now I understand how the diaphragm works!" "It's like looking into your own mouth!"

We feel another important aspect of this clinic is to talk about the political implications of women being able to control their own bodies; Giving abortion referrals, becoming fully aware of the great need for abolishing all laws that restrict and control women. We believe that getting to know yourself can save your life. Women are killing themselves with panic abortive methods, because our laws refuse them proper care. In spite of our restrictive laws, getting to know our own bodies and what we can do for them has opened up far better choices of personal care. We are continuing to live under outrageous laws and barbaric medical practices. We believe that in learning to accept the care and knowledge of our own physical selves, we will be well on the road to self determination.

Some of the finding that came of our original self-help clinic and on which we were then able to take positive action were: 1) A woman who is exposed to the risk of pregnancy, by examining herself once a week, and becoming thoroughly familiar with her own cervix, can within one week after missing her period, recognize that she is pregnant. She need not depend on chemical tests. 2) Gonorrhea is still difficult but when uterine discharges occur, we catch them early and can take positive early action. 3) Yeast infections can be recognized easily, and treated inexpensively and in many cases with positive results within 24 hours without prescription. You need not be a highly skilled clinician to learn to recognize by name the most common vaginal infections. By being able to recognize early infections we have taken control of our right to choices of treatment. Including the choice of ultimate self determination which is also called "doing the job myself."

In starting a self-help clinic we can make some suggestions. We have no leader, no formal structure. We use some of the consciousness-raising techniques during our discussions. Although physical experience is essential, rapping about sex, reproduction and physiology especially when you don't know what you are talking about can lead to some fancy bullshitting. That has to be dealt with right on with good factual material. In addition to standard texts, we strongly recommend the Birth Control Handbook put out by Montreal Women's Liberation. (P.O. Box 1000, Station G, Montreal 130, P.Q., Canada.) There are films available through most public and school libraries. They are informative and can be valuable for comparative purposes. After viewing a film on the present, medically approved hospital abortion method (commonly called D and C), we checked into and found a better, more humane, and safer method being developed and used. This method is not to be confused with the aspiration method used today in many hospitals and used in conjuction with D and C's. We have found a more highly refined aspiration technique that is both simple and safe.

Our rap sessions have no rules governing participation. We believe that the modesty hangups for each of us fall in their own time. And they do fall as our consciousness is being raised. Age makes little difference once we get our goals in mind. Our group has an R.N. -- which was totally unplanned. She has been able to steer us into competent references. We also have a sympathetic physician with whom we confer. But no one lectures.

About 10 people seem to be the ideal number to participate. When our group has grown to as many as 15 we spinoff into the neighboring communities.

We feel that by far the most important aspect of our self-help clinic is in its political implications that women already have the right to control their own bodies. There is nothing to fear but ignorance. Get rid of that ignorance and you are doing it!

-The West Coast Sisters

Herstory

2010-11-04T15:21:00.000-07:00

HERSTORY OF ABORTION
By: Colleen Wilson

Visit our "Reclaiming Abortion" and "Speak Out" webpages!

While doing research about abortion, I must explain that abortion is always mentioned as just another means of birth control and therefore is always grouped with all other forms of birth control and intertwined with the sexual practices between the female and the male.

In the so-called primitive days when women and men were about the same size and strength and the female was as mobile and independent as the male, except when she was close to giving birth, there must have been great mystery for both sexes, as the male of the species could plainly see that the female had three added things going for her that he did not have.

First of all, at a certain age of a female would have menstrual period, and from that time on she could have children. This of course the male could not do, but there is evidence that he sure tried to imitate the menstrual process by a nasty operation called a subincision which was performed on the adolescent boy. A stone was placed inside an incision and allowed to grow closed, but on certain occasions this was irritated until it would bleed. An imitation of the female process that is still practiced in New Guinea.

Now of course if this operation was too painful or did not show the desired results, then no one was going to get by with it, so the menstrual cycle was made into something that was to be dreaded, and women during their cycles were considered unclean. All sorts of taboos were placed on the women, and any man that came near her. The cultural status of women was lowered on the basis of her biological performance.

Now the natural protection against unwanted pregnancy was, and still is, before and during the menstrual cycle and this is also the time of greatest sexual desires. When the taboos were put on our foremothers (the menstrual taboos are the oldest known taboos in the human family), the tide had turned for them as they lost not only their natural birth control, but also their time of greatest sexual desire.

The second link in the natural chain, that somehow became changed and made unnatural can best be stated by Mark Twain when he wrote in the 1890's: "The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in women's construction, is this: there shall be no limit put upon her interaction with the other sex sexually, at any time in her life. The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in man's construction, is this: During his entire life he shall be under inflexible limits and restrictions sexually. Man is competent from the age of 16 henceforward for 35 years, while his own grandmother is still as good as new. By the women's make she is out of service three days in the month and during part of her pregnancy. These are times of discomfort, often of suffering. For fair and just compensation she has the high privilege of unlimited activity the other days of her life. What becomes of this high privilege? Does she live in free enjoyment of it? NO. Nowhere in the whole world. She is robbed of it everywhere. Who does this? MAN. Man's statutes. Now you have a sample of man's "reasoning powers" as he calls them. He observed certain facts. That his procreative competency is limited to an average of 5000 times, while hers is a 150,000 times. Yet instead of fairly and honorably leaving the making of the laws to the person who has an overwhelming interest at stake in it, this immeasurable hog, who has nothing at stake worth considering makes the laws himself, and puts all these facts together and arrives at the astonishing conclusions: That the creator intended that women be restricted to one man. Or even more ridiculous, that the man should have a harem. This is just one of many such Biblical statutes that has been imported into the law books of the nations, where it continues its violations"

In order for some men to prevent the female from using the sexual desires that she was born with, many truly sadistic methods were invented, one being another nasty operation called infibulation. During this operation performed on young girls entering puberty, the clitoris and both labia were cure away and the vulva areas sewn almost closed. Only to be opened in adulthood to enable the husband to impregnate her and then sewn closed again. Open for childbirth and sewn up again. Here the jealousy and/or desire for power of the male went so far as to limit completely the female's desires and also her capacity for pregnancy and childbirth unless that male said differently. This operation is still being performed in parts of Egypt.

The third thing our foremothers had going for them that was also made into a burden was pregnancy and childbirth. Child-bearing in the ancient days and also today in the food-gathering cultures of South Africa and Australia was much easier, as a woman could have a baby and within an hour catch up with the rest of her tribe and behave as before, except for the added activites of nursing. But this has also been made into a handicapping situation and in the more complex societies the more complicated the process of birth has become, until only a few years ago it was common for an American woman to stay 10 days to 3 weeks in confinement after childbirth. Pregnancy is considered a precarious condition, and childbirth is surrounded with myths and mysteries and dangers that cause so many women to approach this period with great fear and anxiety.

The male has denied the advantages that women have by treating them as disadvantages and investing them with mysterious or dangerous properties. By making women objects of fear and some one to be avoided as unclean, they lowered the status of women on the basis of their physical performance. These physical advantages were first demoted to the status of cultural disadvantages and from then on there has always been a belief in the cultural and biological disadvantage of women.

By the time this had all taken place our foremothers were probably convinced that they were somehow lesser persons that their fathers, brothers, and mates. As the great robbery had been pretty well completed, these women of our past had nothing more going for them than extra unwanted pregnancies. But they had another thing going for them and that was their minds. They could think and because this could not be seen, it was harder for the male to try to take away. They were able to think and, like all human beings, they knew what was best for themselves. All the senses were working to let the mind know and make the judgment of decision. A woman knows better than any other person if she should or should not have a child. No matter what the reason against it, each woman knows when she should not have a child. And that's all that our foremothers really had going going for them back in the beginning of time and for thousands of years up until 100 short years ago. These marvelous women of the past practiced that one prerogative that they had left, birth control before the act and miscarriage or abortion after the act.

The Christian dogma came into conflict with Roman customs just when abortions were allowed. (Now this is where we start hearing the word ALLOWED.) What they (men) were going to allow women to do or not to do with their bodies. Even though there was a conflict the old abortion customs remained in effect until 313 A.D. In 314 A.D. St. Basil condemned all abortions, but the majority of theologians followed Aristotle's view that the so called soul developed in three stages -- the vegetable soul at conception, then a higher animal and soul and at last a rational soul.

The church, in accordance with that theory, generally punished abortion only if performed after the soul had become rational or 'animated'. This point also had been drawn from Aristotle and was set down at 40 days after conception for a male fetus and 80 days for a female. No one ever explained how fetal sex was to be determined or how a woman knew exactly which day she had conceived on. Did you notice again that the female came in second? Being that the female was such a subhuman person it only stood to reason that it would take 40 days longer for her to acquire that soul.

Over 5000 years ago in ancient China, women fired quicksilver all day in oil and then swallowed the potion. Or they swallowed 14 live tadpoles three days after menstruation. When these things did not work, then they had a recorded abortive technique that did work. Egyptian women in 1500 B.C. made a plug of crocodile dung mixed with a kind of paste, or prepared a tampon from lint soaked in juice, fermented from locust tips, or mixed honey with a natural sodium compound for a douche. These were used first as a contraceptive and then as an abortion solution.

The Greeks and ancient Romans made abortion the basis of a well-ordered population policy. An extensive literature on abortion techniques, ranging from the insertion of papyrus and dry sponges to the use of laurel and peppers was recorded. William Leaky, the historian stated, "The practice of abortion was one to which few people in antiquity attached any feelings of condemnation, and described it as 'almost universal'." Plato advised abortion for every woman after 40. Aristotle advised all forms of population control.

Now I don't want anybody to get the idea that our foremothers really owned their own bodies. Although the cultures usually cared less, in most of these societies the mate or husband had absolute control over the family. And if he said it was OK, then the woman could have the abortion. But if she did so without his divine approval, then he could have her severely punished or banished from the family. He also had the power to order an abortion performed on her against her will.

By the 6th century, Byzantine women were so desperate that they tied a tube that held cat liver to the left foot, in hopes that this would ward off pregnancy. In the 16th century, an Italian devised a linen sheath for use by the male. In the Middle Ages potions were prepared from the leaves of young willow trees, mixed with iron rust and potter's clay, the bark of a white poplar tree, and the kidney of a mule. A European folk remedy that was even used in this century was to place roasted walnuts inside the clothing. A woman placed the number of walnuts for the number of years she wished to remain barren. Our own grandmothers nursed each child for several years hoping this would keep them from becoming pregnant again. Each and all of these remedies were followed up by desperate hopes for miscarriage and finally abortion by any means.

For a short three-year period in 1588, Pope Sixtus V wiped out the 40-80 rules and declared excommunication for all abortion. This was a package deal, as he also made adultery a hanging offense in Rome. Anything connected with sexual practices was somehow considered a terrible sin, as he was out to cleanse the Renaissance church. The leading theologians of the period disputed his new rule and most Catholics seemed to ignore it. Three years later Pope Gregory XIV revoked the rule and returned to the 40 day practice. He said "that the hoped for effect had not occurred and had led to constant sacrilege." The Catholics affected had simply overlooked their excommunication status. The old 40 day rule lasted until 1869, 100 short years ago. This is when the NO abortion rule started in the church and within a few years every woman on the face of this earth discovered she had a Catholic uterus, as Catholic Church rules became for some strange reason state laws in many nations around the world, even in non-Catholic countries.

For the past 100 years the human race has been told that abortion is "against the laws of nature", but far from being natural law going back to the dawn of history or even back to early Christianity, the present state and church law is only 100 years old. In fact, abortion as just another form of birth control has been practiced from the beginning of time which makes it "natural law".

But in 1869 there was again a great robbery on our foremothers, this time for the last and only thing they had going for them. The right to own their own bodies. And this robbery was again a package deal, as contraception was beginning to be perfected and the birth control movement was on in France and Belgium. Within a few years after the slap at abortion, the Church waged war on contraceptives. There were two dominant attitudes concerning sex at that time. First, sex was completely evil. Second, intercourse was for the procreation of the race and only for that reason was it permitted. Not only was the female not supposed to enjoy the sex act (that's nothing new), but the male was told not to get excited about it, or he would be committing a sin also. Because it is physically impossible for the male to have sexual intercourse without being excited, it is amazing that we are all here. Or maybe our forefathers were not such religious beings after all.

In the United States the Puritans had inherited this dismal view of sex and no one seemed to have any regard for the person who had been keeping this race going. She was then finally demoted to nothing more than a baby-making machine. As the father of Puritanism, Martin Luther said, "If a woman grows weary and at last dies from child-bearing, it matters not. Let her only die from bearing, she's in there to do it." The type of victory won by this Puritan crusade in the U.S. is exemplified in the U.S. statute of 1873, which was aimed at abortion and contraception. In its title were the words, "Obscene Literature and Articles of Immoral Use".

Now these laws have not stopped women from their natural desire to control their own systems; it has just made it much harder. At the turn of this century it was not hard to abort oneself or have another woman do it but it was hard work to get birth control information. In the past 30 years contraception methods have improved and have been fairly well accepted but the failure factor is still great and abortions are still desired, used, and necessary.

Presently, the federal government is cutting federal funding for abortion. This virtually makes abortion unattainable for poor women. At the same time, there has been an increase in federal spending for sterilization procedures as well as liberalized laws regarding sterilization over the last few years. These sterilization practices have been especially devastating for Third World women in the U.S. --- 20% of all Black women of child bearing age have been sterilized, 24% of Indian women, 22% of Chicana women, and 35% of Puerto Rican women. At The Association for Voluntary Sterilization Conference which was sponsored by Planned Parenthood in Syracuse, New York on September 17 and 18, 1977, there was much discussion of a new sterilization procedure called "mini-lap". This 15 minute procedure involves an incision directly below the belly-button using only a local anesthetic. This new procedure, which can be performed in a doctor's office, is being used largely on Third World women. This is because, according to physicians, TW women are "stronger" and can withstand more pain that white women.

Forced sterilization, either through financial or psychological coercion, or by simply performing the procedure without a woman's informed consent, represents women's ultimate loss of control of our reproductive rights. Now more than ever we must unite with all of our sisters so that we have control of our bodies, our lives, our futures.

Reference:
Lader, Lawrence, Abortion, 1965, Bobb Merrill.
Phelan and Maginnis, Abortion Handbook, 1969 Contact Books.
Twain, Mark, Letters form the Earth, 1938.
Terrible Choice, International Conference on Abortion, 1967, Washington, D.C.
Osterman and Arnold, The Pill and Its Impact, Newsbook National Observer, 1967

Racism and the Women's Movement

2010-11-01T16:25:00.000-07:00

By Carol Downer

Originally Published in Women's Health Movement Papers on July 1980

Please visit Self Help is Global in Women's Health in Women's Hands!

In the Spring of this year, the Feminist Women's Health Center in Los Angeles, along with many women's organizations in Los Angeles, were approached by the Los Angeles Women's Building to respond to a questionnaire on racism. Each questionnaire was to be the basis for an article in Spinning Off, the Women's Building newsletter. Their group had been having discussions about racism, and they wanted to raise the issue of racism and how women's organizations in the women's movement are dealing with it. The Feminist Women's Health Center was one of the many groups that had an interview, article, or statement in the April/May issue. The article, written by Carol Downer, Delores Nola, and Becky Chalker, follows:

One of the most glaring racist characteristics of the women's movement is that most women, like all Americans, are abysmally ignorant of world politics. Many of us, for example, do not comprehend the impact of a trend, exposed by the Peace movement during the Viet Nam War, for the U.S. government to support policies which promote the domination of Third World countries and their resources by U.S. based, global corporations.

In response to this oppressive trend, Third World nations have united in the U.S. and have demanded that they be allowed to become industrialized, instead of simply supplying raw materials to industrialized nations. The Iranian people, whose self-supporting economy and agriculture was destroyed by a flood of U.S. corporations and a massive military build-up, have used the only means available to them to end U.S. interference within their borders -- take over of the Embassy.

In the post-Viet Nam era, the rise of oil prices, the devaluation of the dollar, run-away inflation, high interest rates and unemployment are all the results of the decline of American imperialism.

The rise of the Third World in the last decade represents the best hope that we have seen in our lifetimes for world revolution and for the eradication of capitalism and imperialism and their attendant evils, racism, classism, sexism, homosexism and ageism. While Western white male rulers shake in their boots and scurry around trying to prop up their positions of domination, all women have the opportunity to unite to destroy those institutions which have kept them second class citizens. American women have to get rid of the idea that they have something to lose by the demise of capitalism.

This is why we at the Feminist Women's Health Centers have a commitment to fight racism by working directly on Third World struggles and by making efforts to attract feminists of color to our ranks. We work to achieve our stated goal of struggling against racism, our own and that of others, on a day to day basis. All people who work in our organization must subscribe to these goals. We have open hiring and specific policies concerning job assignment, work space and firing. In our group, women of color have responsible positions and participate in decision and policy making.

To give an example of what we think fighting racism is, in the last year and a half, the Feminist Women's Health Centers in California and on the East Coast, made a major commitment to support the Iranian people's struggle to rid themselves of U.S. imperialism. Because of our work, we were invited after the Embassy takeover, to be on a delegation to travel to Iran in December to support the Iranian revolution, to oppose U.S. military intervention, and to demand the return of the ex-Shah. What we found there made us determined to return home and expose the 25 years of torture and political repression that the United States government wholeheartedly supported.

Our commitment included, in addition to sending 2 staff members on the arduous trip to Tehran, major outlays of money for long distance phone calls press conferences, air travel, duplication of materials, and a national speaking tour. These expenses have resulted in full-time staff taking partial salaries for an extended period. Carol Downer's participations on the tour also resulted in her being jailed for several days, after her stay of sentence for the W.A.T.C.H. Inspection of Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, was cancelled by Judge Charles McClure.

Various individuals and groups in the women's movement have bitterly attacked our trip as supporting anti-women governments, as wasting feminist resources and even as imperialistic, for us to impose our standards on Third World people. We regard these criticisms as absurd and as rationalizations to avoid taking an unpopular stand to support the determination to Iranian people to govern their own lives, by substituting, instead, either merely giving money, medicine, and clothing to Third World revolutionary struggles, or even worse, regarding women's individual career advancement as an exemplary feminist goal.

There is a women's movement and there is a feminist women's movement and the distinction is critical. Movement superstars like Betty Friedan, who rubbed elbows with the Shah of Iran in 1975 and bought the line that he had liberated women in Iran, and that the Empress Farah was somehow a "feminist," is an upper-class woman who is making her fame off the conservative, middle-class women's movement without offering anything of substance in return. Germaine Greer, a priviledged academic, who also traveled to Iran with Friedan, is another star who has gained fame, or at least notoriety, without returning anything useful. We need to banish these figureheads so that all women can struggle to know what true feminism is.

There is a feminist women's movement which has a global perspective with the specific goal, not of trying just to create a comfortable women's community, but of trying to change the conditions in the lives of all people.

We as feminists feel that white women have the right to fight for their liberation against their own oppression, but you can't fight your own oppression without fighting against other peoples as well. Our struggles against oppression are inseparable.

There are many reasons that women of color are not in the women's movement in large numbers: racism from within, pressure from without from their male peers, and because of divisive forces from the government and media. Many factors which are keeping women of color from uniting are not white women's fault, they are the fault primarily of the white patriarchy. Regardless, if the feminist movement does not come to grips with these barriers, and if we do not get women of color involved in some way, then we will become a quaint artifact of the 1970's and irrelevant.

However, the feminist movement shouldn't be judged too harshly, because we do not have all the power to control our lives. We are living a right-wing era, therefore, the women's movement is not broad-based. We've lost the benefits of large numbers of women doing consciousness raising. The movement has been side-tracked into single issues. We must be multi-issues. We can't just be pro-ERA or pro-women's art, or just anti-rape. Single-issue approaches ignore the broad political context of our oppression and racism flourishes in them.

Women of color and white women can fight together for common goals, but we can't ask women of color to abandon their brothers and their cause. For example, you can't forget the issue of police brutality against black men in this city. Separatism, or women of color working within their own organizations, but ultimately, we do have the same interests, we do have the same goals, and we must fight side by side.

Vicious racism, such as that found in most schools, factories and businesses in the U.S. does not flourish in the women's movement, but more subtle racism certainly is a problem, and will continue to be so, as long as the society is not fundamentally changed. We must fight against it in our every day relationships among each other, but even more importantly, we must recognize the roots of racism and work as an organization to attack its social and economic causes.

Menstrual Extraction

2010-10-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

Visit our NEW Our Periods web page!

Originally Published in Women's Health Movement Paper, May 1981

Procedures
By Lorraine Rothman

Menstrual Extraction is a procedure developed by the Los Angeles Self Help Clinic women in 1971 which gently removes the contents of the uterus by suction on or about the first day of menstruation. It is not a medical procedure performed by a physician as a service to women who request an abortion, and it is not a do-it-yourself abortion technique. Menstrual extraction is a home health care procedure developed by Self Help Clinic women who saw its potential for regaining control over our reproductive lives.

Early History

The development of menstrual extraction resulted from our participation as feminists in the national abortion reform movement. We found that we were supporting actions that did not help women as much as they helped particular individuals. We promoted an illegal abortion clinic in Los Angeles opened by Dr. John Gwynn in 1970. After the clinic was raided in 1970, we picketed the courthouse for the two men and three women who had been arrested. The publicity about the clinic focussed on the charisma and the heroism of the men, rather than on the issue of a women's right to abortion.

Early in 1971 our group decided to learn to do abortions and to open an underground, woman-controlled abortion clinic. We had observed less traumatic methods such as suction using a small diameter plastic cannula, and we saw that this method was not only more gentle and safe, but it could be learned by laypersons.

We also recognized that it was important to be more informed about each procedure that is performed on a woman's body so that we could have a better basis for referring women to safe, competent health care facilities.

We abandoned the plan for an underground abortion clinic, however, because in the fall of 1971, hospitals in Los Angeles were expanding their abortion programs, liberally interpreting the 1967 Therapeutic Abortion Act.

Menstrual Extraction Concept

We saw the possibilities of using the non-traumatic method for reasons other than early abortion. We had practiced on one another during our menstrual periods and we learned that introducing a four millimeter cannula into the os of the cervix caused very little pain so that it was unnecessary to use any anesthetic. We learned that simple sterile techniques were sufficient, since there was no breaking of the skin or scrapping of tissue. We also learned that it was possible to extract the major portion, or all, of the typical menstrual period. This usually brought immediate cessation of the cramps and other uncomfortable menstrual symptoms. We decided to name the procedure menstrual extraction.

Materials and Methods

It was evident that women did not have equipment to do menstrual extraction, nor any way to get and safely use what was available. Vacuum aspirators are expensive, large and cumbersome, and produce much more vacuum than is necessary. We had practiced with a portable device used by Harvey Karman, and were impressed with its simplicity (the plastic cannula attached directly to a plastic syringe). We found it difficult to manipulate, however, and it had the potential to accidently reverse the suction, thus allowing menstrual fluid and possibly air into the uterus. We were concerned about the potential complications that might result from reversing the suction. As a member of the Los Angeles Self Help Clinic, I saw that we needed a simple and inexpensively-made device, which had built-in safety features. I invented the Del-Em to suit the group's needs. Vacuum is created in a small bottle which is attached to a small cannula that is inserted into the cervical os. An automatic valve attachment controls the direction of the air flow and locks in the pressure, eliminating any possibility of pushing menstrual fluid or air back into the uterus.

The Del-Em's safety features are particularly important because of the constraints under which we operate. Opportunities to learn the procedure are dependent on a member of the group having her menstrual period. In spreading the technology to other communities, we are limited by the short time in which we can visit others or in which other women can visit us.
Menstrual extraction occurs either at the woman's home or at the group's meeting place. A woman will usually choose to have an extraction on or about the first day her period is expected. However, some women have extractions as much as two weeks beyond the expected date of menstruation.

Three women are the key people involved with extractions: the woman who is to have the extraction (she sometimes controls the vacuum pressure), a woman who observes the equipment for proper functioning, and a woman who inserts and moves the cannula. At times, other group members participate in order to learn the procedure.

After the woman who is to have the extraction places herself comfortably on a table or bed, other women in the group perform a pelvic examination to determine the size, location, and characteristics of the woman's pelvic organs. Certain signs are watched for, such as advanced pregnancy, infection, or other problems. Because the group has frequent opportunities at regular meetings to become familiar with one another, a basis for comparison has been established so that any contra-indications are more easily recognized.

The woman inserts her own speculum, examines her own cervix and talks with the group; has others in the group look at her cervix; and then decides whether or not she wants to have the extraction. She talks about her past experiences and purposes for extracting her period, such as relief of menstrual pain. If she suspects she is pregnant, she will discuss her subjective signs and these signs will be evaluated in light of her previous experiences with pregnancies, amount and frequency of exposure to sperm, and her fertility at the time of exposure.

The Del-Em consists of a plastic 50-cubic-centimeter syringe that has a valve on the end. The valve prevents air from being injected into the uterus. The syringe is pumped until it becomes difficult to pull the plunger. Air is removed from the bottle in this way creating a vacuum. The cannula is carefully inserted through the undilated cervical os. Often, the inner cervical muscle can be felt against the cannula. If the slender flexible cannula bends, forceps can be attached to the middle of the cannula giving it more stability. Sometimes a stabilizer is attached to the cervix so that the uterus does not move with the movement of the cannula.

The woman who is having the extraction will tell the other women when she feels the cannula touching the back wall of her uterus. She will continue to relate what she is experiencing as the cannula is moved back and forth making sure, however, that it remains fully inserted. The menstrual material appears within the cannula after a short time.

The cannula is moved within the uterus until either no more menstrual material comes out or the woman having the extraction says she wants to stop. The tubing attached to the cannula is clamped off to avoid any unnecessary discomfort of suction as the cannula is removed through the cervical canal.

Results

Most women who do menstrual extraction do not experience excessive discomfort. Women experience different degrees of cramping during the extraction. Sometimes, women can feel strong cramping when the cannula is inserted through the cervical canal. Most women feel strong cramping at the end of the extraction as the uterus contracts. Menstrual extraction discomfort or pain from abortions that are done by electrically powered suction machines.
Daily phone contact is the common follow-up method until the group meets again. Infections, which in our experience have been rare, are recognized by a rise in temperature to 100.5 F. or more for 8 or more hours. Pain or cramping in the lower abdomen may be felt as well. It is important that if an infection occurs, the woman receives antibiotic treatment.

Sometimes a woman may have strong cramping in the couple of days following the extraction and pass clots or retained tissue. We have found that passing of the clots or tissue can be aided by gently messaging or pressing the lower abdomen and uterus.

If the woman believes she may have been pregnant, the group will pour the uterine contents into a shallow pan looking for chorionic villi*. They are yellowish with branch-like structures and are quite different from menstrual fluid. If there were no signs of a pregnancy, the extracted material will be studied in order to better understand the composition of menstrual fluid.
We are often asked about complications, such as uterine perforations, hemorrhage, infection, retained tissue, cervical incompetence, uterine prolapse and air embolism. These questions arise out of confusion of menstrual extraction with abortion techniques performed by physicians. People incorrectly assume that we use dilators, large rigid cannulas and curettes.

Most women who have access to legal, reasonably priced abortions have chosen to do menstrual extraction only if they were part of an on-going group and had done menstrual extraction previously, have missed their periods by a few days, and, because of their familiarity and knowledge, were reasonably sure that no contradictions existed.

Lorraine Rothman, an activist in the women's health movement, is currently a member of a book-writing team at the Feminist Women's Health Center in Los Angeles which is writing a self-help book. As a member of the first self-help clinic organized by Carol Downer in 1971, she invented and patented the Del-Em menstrual extraction kit.

*Webster's defines these as "highly vascular embryonic" membranes that are associated with "the formation of the placenta." (Webster's Third World International Dictionary, G. and C. Merriam Co., Springfield, Massachusetts, 1966)

What is the Women's Health Movement?

2010-10-26T14:56:00.000-07:00

Originally Published in Women's Health Movement Paper, July 1980

The Women's Health Movement is a movement of women who are working on women's health issues so that women's lives will be improved by having more control over their bodies. Much of the work of the women's health movement has been to improve the ability of women to get health care within the health care system, to develop alternatives to the traditional health care system, and to fight unsafe medical practices which are harming women all over the world. Many women's health groups are directly confronting pharmaceutical companies which manufacture dangerous experimental drugs, hospitals for dangerous childbirth practices, sterilization abuse and unnecessary surgery. Other women's health groups have launched suits to get damages for women who have had health injuries from dangerous medical practices (such as DES, or Dalkon Shields).

The Self-Help Clinic is another major part of the womens health movement. In self-help groups women have learned much about the normal functioning of our bodies and how to control our health care, through self-examination. Self-help groups have focused on safe birth control methods, treating vaginal infections, lesbian health care, menopause, and early pregnancy detection. Women involved in self-help clinics are working in the spirit of women regaining control over their own lives.

Women-controlled clinic are another part of the women's health movement. These clinics offer a real alternative to women from the medical system. These women-controlled clinics offer many services, ranging from abortions, to pregnancy screening, vaginal infection clinics, VD screening, and some women health care clinics have home birth projects and/or lesbian health care clinics.

Women's support groups have also emerged on issues such as breast surgery, C-sections, rape, DES Daughters.