REPORT - TRIP TO NEW YORK CITY, BROOKLYN, N.Y. AND WASHINGTON, D.C.

October 26 to October 28, 2014

By Carol Downer

Background: StopPatriarchy.org Advisory Committee met one day and the next day a planning meeting for the January 22, 2015 events in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. took place.  I met with Silvia Federici, author of Caliban and the Witch.  Becky Chalker and I attended the National Women’s Health Network (NWHN) Awards Event.

Summary:

1. 10-26-14: Meeting of StopPatriarchy.org Advisory Committee
2. 10-27-14: Meeting of members, Advisory Committee and community activists
3. 10-27-14: Meeting with Silvia Federici
4. 10-28-14: National Women’s Health Network 7th Annual Barbara Seaman Awards for Activism in Women’s Health; Meeting with Adriane Fugh-Berman
5. 10-29-14: Meeting with Ninia Baehr 

New York City 10-26-14 - Meeting of StopPatriarchy.org Advisory Committee: Members present were myself, Mary Lou Singleton, Merle Hoffman; also present were Sunsara Taylor, initiator of Stop Patriarchy, and Mary Lou Greenberg.  We had a free-ranging discussion: (1) to deepen our understanding of the objective situation we confront--where we are in the war on women with a particular focus on the concentrated battle over abortion, and (2) to get off the losing trajectory and forge the kind of politically uncompromising, mass independent political resistance.

No one else is doing this on a national level.

Discussion:

Topic: The main slogan of Stop Patriarchy, “Abortion on Demand and Without Apology”. The members that were present had consensus on this slogan, and have found many people in the movement and in the public who wholeheartedly respond favorably to it, but we discussed the concerns that some have made that the slogan may be too strong.  I reported that many abortion providers are dedicated to abortion rights, but do not want to offend those who have mixed feelings about abortion in their communities, and they want the support of the Democratic Party which has a pro-choice platform, but sometimes endorses candidates who are anti-abortion.  Without more members at the meeting, we couldn’t fully explore these concerns.

Topic: Slogan - “Enforced Motherhood is Female Enslavement”.  This slogan drew fire from the ad hoc group, “Texans for Reproductive Justice”, because it is not the type of slavery that American Black slaves experienced, but the Committee does not agree that this slogan is racist.

Other topics: Planned Parenthood’s (PP) taking over leadership of National Abortion Federation; it’s negative impact on independent abortion providers; its domination of community “pro-choice” coalitions.  I told the group that, although I have known of PP’s negative impact on the abortion movement; that I, along with other feminists and abortion providers, have kept silent, because “we didn’t want to give the anti’s more ammunition”.  But now, as I see how disastrous this course has been, I feel compelled to speak out and share the information about PP’s harmful activities.  Others did not dispute the truth of my specific allegations, but did not want to attack PP, but rather to chart our own course and put forth a more feminist, aggressive strategy.

Role of Advisory Committee Members: We wrestled with and developed a clearer sense of what it means to be on the advisory board of Stop Patriarchy.

Bill Baird called and shared his advice on what Stop Patriarchy should be doing.  Bill, who is a pioneer in the abortion rights movement, continues to be active.  As always, Bill is inspirational and his comments helped up to get perspective on the battle, especially with the Catholic Church.

We all felt that the opportunity to meet and discuss things in a relatively unstructured setting allowed us to have vigorous discussions, especially where we had minor differences in our political views, which reinforced those areas where we were in total agreement.  We did get to know each other better, and I’m sure it will help me on our future conference calls.

New York City, October 26, 2014: Community Planning Meeting for Actions on January 22, 2015 in San Francisco, CA and Washington, D.C.
Attending: Stop Patriarchy Advisory Board Members, others within the abortion provider community, activists with Stop Patriarchy, other women's liberation activists, and several students.  We had lively discussions around such questions as:

If we have a low turnout at our events, might this show our opponents our weakness and be counter-productive? 

We know that we will be outnumbered, because the anti-abortion movement annually brings busloads of church members from several states to their rallies.  They have about 10,000 marchers.  So, how many do we need to have to create a credible force.  My thinking is that we only require the number of people it takes to stage a dramatic event that puts forth a powerful message.  Others speculated 100-200 people.  Of course, we’ll get out as many as possible.

Many good ideas were suggested for building for the march and using signs and other visual materials and socio-dramas that would make our points.  Since this report is going out online, I will not be specific, but I can say that I was impressed with the creativity.  Various tactics were discussed to make sure that our message would be clear.  So, great progress was made.  It was wonderful to be working with these women.

A future meeting date was selected – November 21st.  If you’re interested, please contact me or stoppatriarchy@gmail.com.

I talked with Fran Luck, of WBAI and others about Planned Parenthood.  They were surprised and shocked at some of the specifics.  I will be following up on those contacts.  The independent providers in attendance were not surprised at the facts I was reporting.

Brooklyn, N.Y. October 26, 2014 - Meeting with Silvia Federici

Federici graciously agreed to meet with me, Becky Chalker and Kinyofu Mlimwengu, on short notice, even though she had spent the weekend at a conference.  She served a wonderful repast of soup, bread and salad and delicious cheesecake!  Any fears I had that somehow we wouldn’t hit it off disappeared, because our dinner conversation showed how much we all agreed on a variety of topics.  Because our time was limited, I kept bringing back the conversation to how Caliban and the Witch provided the historical explanation of how women’s knowledge about our bodies was purposely and systematically destroyed, and that I believe that the self-help movement emerged as a powerful antidote to the poisonous effects of patriarchal capitalism.  Silvia completely respects our work, but she wanted to know more of how I saw self-help being used to turn around the subjugation of women’s bodies.  She gave us autographed copies of her book, Revolution at Point Zero, and Becky and Kinyofu left with copies of Caliban and the Witch.  I proposed we three start a book club!

Silvia is well-travelled.  She told us about how Italian social welfare agencies take away immigrant women’s children, put them in “group homes” until the women can prove that they have enough money to maintain them.  I’m going to get more specifics.  If you’re interested in learning about this, let me know.

I left Silvia’s with a head full of ideas about how to carry my new understanding that even though Patriarchy has a long history, the creation of capitalism in Europe depended on wiping out the traditional knowledge that women then had, making “modern women” especially alienated from our bodies and dependent on the medical profession.  Furthermore, this primitive accumulation of capital enabled the European nobility, the church and the capitalists to expand their “empires” over many other peoples, along with using many of the same techniques to destroy women’s knowledge, in addition to plundering the resources by forcing those peoples into slavery to extract the resources.  Just realizing this history doesn’t ensure that we European white women will make the necessary effort to unite with the descendants of colonized peoples to fight against imperialism and capitalism, but I think it will give us a sound basis to do so.

Kinyofu told me about the upcoming Reproductive Awakening program.  This is part of a series of meetings she is curating.

Washington, D.C., October 27-28 - National Women’s Health Network 7th Annual Barbara Seaman Awards for Activism in Women’s Health  

I attended with Becky Chalker.  Becky’s most recent book is The Clitoral Truth.  She is an adjunct professor at Pace University in New York City.  It was a reception.  We were late because it had no readable signage for an out-of-towner to see.  Food and drink were provided.  The presentation had started.  We couldn’t see the program and I couldn’t hear it, unfortunately.  Afterwards, we were able to chat with old friends.  I saw Clare Feinson, who was in the Women’s Caucus at the American Public Health Association (APHA) during the time the health centers were active in that organization.  Clare is free-lancing, doing proposals, writing and research, etc.  She also works part-time at a synagogue; Clare has done amazing work in a Jewish group bringing an awareness of women’s health issues and sexuality issues to the community.  Unfortunately, Clare has some mobility problems, but otherwise she is very vital and involved.

Meeting with Adriane Fugh-Berman: After the reception, we walked with Adriane, a board member of NWHN and a reporter to a nearby Chinese restaurant.  Adriane is an associate professor at Georgetown University and a director of PharmedOut.org.  The reporter is focusing on information about the FDA and the regulations of pharmaceutical companies.  Adriane has written a book, Alternative Medicine: What Works: A Comprehensive, Easy-to-Read Review of the Scientific Evidence, Pro and Con.  I told her about Holly Grigg-Spall’s book, Sweetening the Pill.

10-29-14:  Meeting with Ninia Baehr
Ninia Baehr is on the board of the NWHN.  She is Deputy Director of the ACLU in Montana, and she wrote the pamphlet, “Abortion Without Apology, a radical history for the 1990’s”.  She wrote about Lana Phelan, Pat Maginnis and Rowena Gurner, and she also wrote about the Self-Help Health Movement.

Presently, Ninia is working on her PhD.  She is interested in comparing the politics and approach of the Self-Help Health Movement and the Right-to-Die movement.  She sees many parallels, in that they both are movements demanding body autonomy.  She, Becky and I had breakfast; our meeting actually consisted of a discussion about how “gender politics” has taken over women’s studies and is creating a direct challenge to radical feminists, especially those who want women-only spaces for women to explore their common oppression and to develop anti-male supremacy strategies.  We also talked about pornography and whether there can be a feminist position to support pornography.

I asked Ninia (as I have also asked Becky and other associates I have who are in academia) if she knew how Women’s Studies departments came to become “Gender Studies” departments.  She didn’t know, as do none of the other people I’ve talked to.

Ninia will be interviewing me in the near future regarding early history of self-help.

Sharing of Resources:

• Abortion Without Apology, a radical history for the 1990‘s, Ninia Baehr, South End Press, Pamphlet No. 8, 1990 amazon.com
• Revolution at Point Zero, Housework, Reproduction and Feminist Struggle.  Silvia Federici, PM Press, P.O. Box 23912, Oakland, CA 94623 pmpress.org
• Stop Patriarchy - www.stoppatriarchy.org
• Caliban and the Witch, Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, Second, Revised Edition, 2014, autonomedia.org, info@autonomedia.org

Contacts:

• Stop Patriarchy - www.stoppatriarchy.org
• Clare Feinson, Blackbird Development Solutions,1752 Hobart Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20009; (202)302-1823
• Adriane Fugh-Berman (Director) - www.pharmedout.org
• Kinyofu Mlimwengu - reproductiveawakening.com

Hyde Amendment Update

By Carol Downer

New Hyde Amendment--never discussed in Committee, much less debated on the floor of the Senate--and only discussed in Democratic-dominated Committee in the House last Friday and resulting in the decision of the Republican-dominated Committee to send a favorable “message bill” including the provisions that would expand last year’s Hyde Amendment.  This “message bill”, which doesn’t legally constitute an amendment, apparently wafted through the Halls of Congress and landed on the desks of the top level congressional negotiators to become a rider on the omnibus spending bill which will be voted on by both houses by this Saturday. 

The negotiations between the “appropriators” from both houses were secret, but everyone speculates that they vigorously debated this and other controversial items, and the language in the bipartisan spending bill contains the provisions of the democrat-sponsored Senate bill, S.142, and some, but not all of the provisions of the House H.R.7.  Significantly, the part of the message bill that died along the way was the provision to interfere with the provision of abortion coverage by private insurance companies.  Not coincidentally, this provision would have expanded Hyde to ban coverage to middle-class women who have insurance coverage.  Medicaid-eligible poor women and many women of color have once again been left out in the cold.

So, what are we to conclude?  Once again, despite the new and very welcome efforts of the All Above All organizations, including strong leadership from organizations of women of color, this anti-woman legislation has passed without the fingerprints of the legislators.  Once again, we’re told that the Democratic Party, who most of us faithfully support, has done its best.  Has it?

The Hyde Amendment has done more harm to the unity and strength of our women’s movement than all the right-wing fanatic attacks combined, because we have not made the fight against it the top priority.  After the significant but not unmarred victory of Roe v. Wade, Henry Hyde figured out a way to finagle his way through the congressional maze to strike a grievous blow against American women.  He used the ancient tactic of “divide and conquer”.  This idea of attaching the legislation to the appropriations bill was brilliant; it put congress members, both Democrats and Republicans, in the position of having to vote the budget down in order to defeat the ban on abortion funding.  But, over the 37 years that have passed since the Hyde Amendment slid through, both Democrats and Republicans have obviously had to cooperate in order for this strategy to work.  After all, both parties have had ups and downs, and the Democratic Party, which has a pro-choice platform, has enjoyed sessions where they had much more power than today, but still they winked at the legislative sleight of hand.

In the meantime, women’s organizations and abortion providers have all worked very hard to ameliorate the impact of the Hyde Amendment.  Many abortion providers offer sliding scale fees and both local and national fund-raising efforts have been able to offer full or partial help to women who could not afford their abortion.  THESE EFFORTS HAVE BEEN BAND-AIDS ON THE WOUNDS OF AN UNJUST SYSTEM.  Many individual women have been helped, but the fact remains that the Republican Party has been successful in keeping poor women and women of color down, and the Democratic Party has participated in this devious legislative charade to throw poor women under the bus in the name of the larger needs of the Democratic Party.

But, social injustice is only part of the harm.  Another, equally important is that we allowed the anti-abortion forces to separate us; of dividing us by race and class. 

We need to get real about this fight.  It’s not enough to decry the Hyde Amendment.  All Above All is correct in identifying the racist and classist Achilles Heel of the white, middle-class women’s movement, but we will make the same mistake today if we don’t go past this necessary step and start making the pro-choice advocates stop being apologists for the Democratic Party.    

We have to insist that they throw a spotlight on the back room deals.  We need to question the automatic support of the democratic candidate, especially if he’s anti-choice.  Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania may have personal feelings toward abortion.  He may even exercise those convictions by choosing to vote to outlaw abortion.  That’s something he’ll have to explain to his constituency.  But when he takes the lead in proposing Hyde Amendment legislation (S.142), then he is colluding with this deceptive process where bills are proposed and never get out of committee, but end up magically being hidden in the Budget Bill, so that Democrats can merely pretend to recognize the fundamental right of a woman to control her body, but vote for anti-abortion legislation. 

We must hold the Democratic National Committee accountable for supporting a Democratic legislator who is actively working against their pro-choice platform.

September is our next opportunity to force our pro-choice advocates in Washington, D.C., to stop pleading political expediency to justify their silence.

Hyde Amendment - Where Is It Now?

By Carol Downer

Where is this year’s version of the Hyde Amendment, a rider that Congress tacks on the Appropriations Bill?  In the House, it was in the “Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice” until Thursday, January 9, until Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes-Norton announced that the Republican-controlled Committee had decided to send a “message bill”, a way that gets around having to send the proposed legislation to the full House for debate and a vote.

Norton shed a spotlight on the hearing on this nasty piece of proposed legislation which expands the usual Hyde Amendment prohibition of federal monies to fund Medicaid abortions, when she spoke from the House floor to complain about the Committee’s chairman,Trent Franks (R) not having permitted her to speak before the Committee hearing even though her district would be directly impacted by the proposed bill which would prohibit the District of Columbia from spending its local funds on abortion services for low-income women, and define the D.C. government as part of the federal government for the purposes of abortion.

In the Senate, the Hyde Amendment has been lying dormant in the “Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee” since January 24, 2013.  This legislation’s sponsor is Senator Robert “Bob” Casey, Jr. (D, PA). Casey, this Democrat who is a liberal on all other issues than abortion, was given the dubious honor of leading the Democrat-controlled Senate in this war on women.

Now, leaders of both parties are expected to meet secretly and hammer out a much-delayed budget agreement and avoid another government shutdown. Somehow the House and Senate Appropriations Bills will appear magically containing some or all of the prohibitions of abortion funding listed in these two bills with no legislator’s name on it, and most, if not all, of the members of the House and the Senate will okay the budget.

Once again, the Hyde Amendment will get its annual lease on life, and we won’t be able to hold anyone accountable except the outspoken anti-choice legislators.

Whenever a pro-choice advocate talks about “repealing” the Hyde Amendment, you can bet that they know that the Hyde Amendment is a rider that lives only a year and it has to be re-attached each year, but they don’t want to risk revealing that for 38 years, no matter who was in power in the Congress, both Republicans and Democrats have voted for it.

The old saying is that no one would eat sausage if they could see how it’s made. This week - the money runs out Wednesday - the sausage-making is happening, and women will be the losers.

Women's Health in Women's Hands

In 1973, feminists scored a victory for women’s reproductive rights in the courts with Roe v. Wade.  For almost 40 years, the courts have mostly upheld those rights.  Those same 40 years, state and federal legislatures have waged a relentless battle against these rights, mostly successful in withholding federal funding for abortion and forcing minors to get parental consent, but otherwise unable to bar abortion. 

Today, legislatures are scoring victories.  Clinics in Texas have been shut down, pending further court review of restrictive regulations.  So, the masses of women must cease to rely solely on the courts and abortion advocates fighting in the courts and doing lobbying in the state and federal capitols.  We must take the issue to the streets or to other mass protest methods.

Our protests must be focused and directed.  We need to identify the who, the what, the where and the when of these legislative attacks.

- Carol Downer

December Newsletter: Hyde Amendment, OC NWPC Report, and Next Meeting

Women's Health in Women's Hands

December Newsletter
http://eepurl.com/KSU4b

Women’s Health in Women’s Hands is a website by Carol Downer.  It features DIY Gynecology, with lots of woman-to-woman information about our reproductive and sexual anatomy, choices in the birth setting and breastfeeding, safe and effective birth control, abortion, menstruation, menopause, and menstrual extraction—told frankly from an independent woman’s point of view.

View the latest email - http://eepurl.com/KSU4b

To subscribe - email whwh@womenshealthinwomenshands.org

Newsletter Features:

Orange County National Women’s Political Caucus Gathering/Presentation (Report by Carol Downer)

IT’S TIME TO WAGE A OFFENSIVE WAR TO DEFEAT ANTI-CHOICE LEGISLATION! (Information by Carol Downer)

UNFINISHED BATTLE DISCUSSION GROUP in Los Angeles, CA (Note: Meeting postponed til January 11, 2014

Report on "Emergency Strategy Meeting to Preserve Abortion"

By Carol Downer

The meeting was a success. Four of us, all veteran abortion right activists, introduced our work to each other, exchanged experiences and information and discussed a wide array of tactics.  We all agreed that the future of legal abortion has never been more in peril.  We also agreed that while the pro-choice legal team around the country are doing a great job, now is the time for women and women’s rights supporters to swell the ranks of the existing abortion rights organizations and a grass-roots movement needs to arise if we’re going to win. 

We set a date and time for the next meeting of like-minded people.  For now, this meeting will be called the Unfinished Battle Discussion Group, referring to the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court issued its Roe v. Wade decision at a time when the size of the abortion rights movement was exploding in size and picking up steam.  Roe v. Wade pulled the rug out from under this movement; we shifted our efforts into opening clinics and working on other women’s issues.

For now, the next meeting will be at the same place on Saturday, December 14, at 2:00pm.  See Facebook Event Page.
  
We decided that since the need to get organized is urgent, the ongoing-meetings will take place every two weeks. However, members do not need to come to each meeting.  We will keep everyone posted on the group’s progress.
  
Topics of Discussion and Reports

1. The Abortion Rights Freedom Ride Report of their month-long (July and August 2013) tour through 15 states nearly 10,000 miles, 2 dozen people caravanned, and hundreds rallied.  They found the clinics under siege.  They concluded that a new pro-reproductive rights offensive is needed that goes beyond using the electoral system to bring change.  This 55 page, bound report is available for $10.00 or read online at www.stoppatriarchy.org.  
2. A report of the rally held at Hogue Hospital in Newport Beach held to protest the stopping of abortion procedures when Covenant, a Catholic corporation, bought it.  We discussed doctor’s and hospital’s attitude toward doing abortion procedures, and we learned that the doctors at the rally are outraged that someone has come between them and their patients. 
3.  I shared the rough draft of the article I am writing, “ARISE, YE MASSES OF WOMEN; OUR CLINICS ARE BEING SHUT DOWN! THIS IS THE TIME TO FINISH THE FIGHT THAT WE STARTED 45 YEARS AGO!”  I reminded people that the reason that abortions are done in clinics is because the existing medical establishment refused to do them.  One suggestion I had was that we could start our own hospital.
4. Feedback on this article from veteran clinic administrators who have picketers every clinic day, but strong community support is that although the legal strategy is not working, the problem is not the doctors; we should choose strategies which focus on the anti’s and their effect.  Their experience is that hospitals and medical societies have decided to coexist with the abortion clinics in their community.
5.  We have a beginning list of websites of over 50 pro-choice organizations.  If you would like this list, or the hyperlinks for current articles about the court cases challenging various states’ new anti-abortion laws, you can e-mail us at whwh@womenshealthinwomenshands.org and we will e-mail it to you.

NOTE: If you know of a calendar showing upcoming dates of hearings or other events around the many court cases throughout the country, please let us know how to access it. www.womenshealthinwomenshands.org.

UNFINISHED BATTLE DISCUSSION GROUP

Saturday, December 28, 2013 at 2PM
2250 Fair Park Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90041
Text message: 323 547 4119

Details: Open bi-weekly meetings to discuss news, strategy, and tactics. RSVP via text message if you’re coming. Or online at www.facebook.com/WomensHealthInWomensHands

 

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

(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.