If you have tears, shed them in rage

This is the longest post (by a mile) you'll ever read on this blog, and maybe the most important. I'm going to take you through a few links (we're creating a new form here, the blogumentary), so you can get the full picture, and then let you read a piece that will break your heart, and hopefully, arm you with the rage that should never leave us--the rage against those fellow humans who, thinking they make the world a better place, make it worse.

First, this news story.
"As a 13-year-old Palm Beach County girl prepared this week to end a pregnancy she says she does not want, the Florida Department of Children and Families went to court to stop her from having the abortion. The American Civil Liberties Union challenged the state's position.

The girl, identified only as L.G., lives in a shelter for abused and neglected teens and found out two weeks ago during a doctor's appointment that she is pregnant. Soon after, she told her DCF caseworker in Palm Beach County that she wanted an abortion. The caseworker scheduled an appointment for the girl to have an abortion Tuesday and planned to drive her to the office. On the same day, lawyers for DCF filed an emergency motion to stop L.G. from terminating her pregnancy.

In a hearing that day before Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez, the state said the girl was not able to make an informed decision because of her age and immaturity. Alvarez agreed to delay the abortion until the court could give L.G. a psychological evaluation to find out whether an abortion could cause her emotional harm. The judge also wanted the court to determine whether the girl would face medical risks in terminating the pregnancy or carrying the baby to term.

Under Florida law, a 13-year-old can have an abortion without her parents knowing or agreeing.

In 1988 and 1999, Florida tried to pass laws requiring minors to get their parents' permission to have an abortion. The Florida Supreme Court struck both down as unconstitutional.

Because L.G. was abused or neglected, she has no legal parents but the state. But even as her custodian, the state has no more right to stop her decision than her parents would, the ACLU said. The ACLU asked the courts to act quickly. As she moves into the third month of her pregnancy, the abortion will become more risky. The state should be more concerned with how L.G. was able to get pregnant in state care. However it happened, "forcing a 13-year-old to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term ... is just plain cruel. This is what you get when ideology dictates child welfare decisions."

Here, Bitch PhD takes us to the trial and shows us, in a few brief exchanges, that this abused girl can stand up to the State and the judge:

"Remember the argument about whether or not a 13-year old girl in Florida has the right to an abortion? Whether or not the state has the right to think for her, b/c she's a minor, blah fucking blah?

Well all of us can just shut the fuck up, b/c this is one 13-year-old girl who doesn't need anyone to speak for her. Read this, and then, if necessary, re-think that idea that women--including 13-year old girls in foster care--can't be trusted to think through the realities of abortion on their own. Better than some goddamn bureaucrat at the DCF or a judge who isn't the one carrying the pregnancy.

L.G.: Why can't I make my own decision?
Judge Alvarez: I don't know.
L.G.: You don't know? Aren't you the judge?

DCF: The Department of Children and Families has the custodial responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the child.
L.G.: I think if I want to make the decision, it's my business and I can do that. It would make no sense to have the baby. I don't think I should have the baby because I'm 13, I'm in a shelter and I can't get a job. DCF would take the baby anyway [but] If I do have it, I'm not going to let them take it.

Judge Alvarez (paraphrase): Who is the father?
L.G.: That's not really necessary.

Then Bitch PhD tells a bit more about how it all happened:
"Judge Alvarez said, 'ok, you can have your abortion,' the DCF said, 'we won't drive her to the clinic,' the judge said, 'fine, her attorneys can drive her,' and they were on their way to pick her up when the DCF filed an appeal.

In other words, basically, the plan is to drag this out until the girl is forced to have the baby. I read, at some point, a horrific sci-fi short story told from the pov of a man whose mother was being held in prison, chained to the wall, in order to force her to carry a baby to term (he himself had been, if memory serves, an unwanted pregnancy and she had been forced to bear him). That's basically what's going on here, and Jeb Bush and the state of Florida have done it before. Last time was a mentally retarded rape victim. Nice, huh? Ya gotta love this statement:

In a statement released at 8 p.m., the DCF's West Palm Beach spokeswoman, Marilyn Munoz, quoted from a state law: ''In no case shall the department consent to sterilization, abortion or termination of life support.'' Munoz added: "The DCF has the custodial responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the child, as state law requires.''

Yes, the DCF damn well does have that custodial responsibility. And by jerking this girl around, they are snowing they do NOT have her best interests at stake. There is no way that forcing her to bear a child she does not want, at risk to her mental and physical health, is in her best interests. This kind of shit is what the word "motherfucker" was invented for, just so you know. IMHO.

What is in the best interests of women, including young women like LG, is being listened to. Being taken seriously. Being treated with respect. Listen to this woman, for instance:

'I am here today in my son’s honor to tell you that life doesn’t always follow an easy path. And that life is almost never a black and white issue to be governed by others. I am here to put a face on the issue of abortion for all the families that cannot be here today. And I am here to beg you to remember me and Thomas each and every time you contemplate legislation that would deteriorate our God-given parental rights to do what is moral and just for our children.'

That is it. Whether you believe in god, that is what we are saying, screaming when we talk about this. That is what abortion 'rights' are all about: not legal permission, but the human, animal right and responsibility that we have to care for the children we cannot have, as well as the ones we do--and to take care of ourselves, too. That's what this girl in Florida is trying to do, and everyone from the DCF down to the people hypothesizing about her maturity or what's in her best judgment are doing so by listening to themselves, not her. It isn't about the law, or "most" 13 year olds, or how we define childhood, or whether or not parental consent is required for medical procedures, or any of that crap. It's about this one, very real, girl, who happens to be young, and is also pregnant, and needs to do what she needs to do because she knows that she is too young, too poor, too unprotected to bear a child. That if she bears the child, it will be her child, and the DCF--the agency that is fucking her over to score political points for Jeb Bush and the Republican party with voters who (at best) do not give a rat's ass about people like her or the child she might have (or at worst, voters who actively hate her and any children she might have)--will take that child away, and fuck it, too.

And that's why we can't compromise on abortion rights. Because LG and people like her are not pawns or trading cards. That's what abortion rights is all about."

OK, now here's a comment to introduce the story this is all about, before we get to the actual heart-break. From Flea:

"I am, and have always been, prone to getting cold sores on the inside of my mouth. When I get one, I can't help but poke at it with my tongue, over and over again, no matter how badly it hurts. My brain keeps poking at a post I read at Nyarlathotep's Miscellany in a very similar way, and it keeps hurting my brain and my heart.
In many ways her story is very similar to the 13-year-old Florida girl who had to fight the state of Florida to get an abortion, but it's hitting me a lot harder. Partly because I've known Nyarly for many years, but did not know the details of this, and partly because Nyarly has a knack of forcing herself right up under the skin of the reader, making her pain and anger inescapable, even days later. If I wanted to be completely honest with myself, I'd have to admit that the reason Nyarly choked my heart with her history is because her story could so easily have been my own. What happened to her would have happened to me, and the burden she bears today would have been mine.
Her story is the fallout of what happens when the right to choose is taken away."

Here is Nyarla's story:

"PAYMENT
Stories like this one, the one about the pregnant thirteen-year-old who is fighting DCF in order to get an abortion, always drag me back to my own experience as a pregnant sixteen-year-old in the Bible Belt; they make me wonder, too, whether we'll ever get sensible about young women and pregnancy, or whether we'll keep making the same mistakes, policy-wise, while young women pay for them with their bodies and lives.

I got pregnant the usual way: strict parents, a crummy boyfriend, some major stupidity paired with limited access to, and information about, contraception. I kept it to myself, too, for a month and a half or so, first suspecting I was pregnant, then sure, then trying to figure out what to do. Telling my parents was the worst thing I've ever had to do -- not getting ready to tell them, because honestly, I didn't expect them to react the way they did, but actually telling them. My mother was quietly furious. My father acted like looking at me made him sick, and I think it probably did. I hadn't been ashamed, before -- worried, yes, scared, yes, maybe even a little excited, but not ashamed. It's amazing how quickly you learn to be ashamed, though.

My parents gave me options: abortion or adoption. I said no, I want to keep the baby. They said that was not an option. I said I'd move out. They said they'd report me as a runaway and have me hauled back. I said I'd get emancipated. They said they would never agree. I didn't know anything about my legal rights -- I thought I might have some, but at almost two months pregnant, getting up every day and making it through school took all the energy I had. I came home every day and went to sleep; got up for dinner; went back to sleep. I tried calling some kind of pregnancy hotline, once; it was busy, and I didn't try again. I talked to a school counselor, who seemed concerned until she learned my parents were involved, and then lost interest. Cthulu was the only person I had to talk to. He didn't have any more answers than I did. This was before the internet, and neither of us had cars, and information was impossible to come by.

I wanted the baby. I didn't like being pregnant, and I knew my boyfriend at the time was a major dick, but I wanted the pregnancy. I wanted to give birth. I knew it would be hard, although I probably had no idea how hard, or how very much it would change my life, but I knew I didn't want to give up the child I would have. But it wasn't an option, and I was so tired -- so tired of the way my parents acted around me, and the way my asshole boyfriend started treating me once I was pregnant, and of thinking about what it would be like if my parents were right, if they really could stop me from keeping the baby. The only thing I could imagine that would be harder than an abortion was having a baby I wanted, and nourished with my body, and waited for for nine months, taken from me after I had given birth to it.

So I had the abortion. My mother drove me seventy miles to the nearest clinic. The waiting room was soothing, beautiful, really, with a waterfall in the office. There were protesters outside; my mother steered me past them. In the waiting room, she showed me pictures, black and white, of her family, of my father's family. She told me about the daughter my grandmother had out of wedlock, about my aunt's secret first marriage. I learned the secrets of the women in my family that day. It was good, being so close to her. It was terrible, being initiated into this world because what was happening to me was also intended to be a secret. "I'd rather you not tell your cousins," she said. "I'm not sure your aunt would be comfortable having you around them, if she knew."

The exam was horrible -- I'd never had a gynecological exam, and the doctor didn't explain what he was going to do, or why he needed to do it. Later, in his office, he asked me -- in my mother's presence -- if I was having this done of my own free will. I had a moment where I imagined saying, no, I don't want to, I can't. I won't do this. I couldn't imagine what would come next. I couldn't imagine the seventy miles back in the car with my mother. I said yes.

It could have been worse. The staff, if not particularly compassionate or well-trained to deal with someone my age, was at least not judgmental. There was full anesthesia, much better than a local. I woke up crying in the dark recovery room; I was crying before I was awake. The nurse gave me a lemon soda in a paper cup with a straw, and said it was the anesthesia that made me cry. A side effect.

My mother drove me home; made me soup; brought me the pills I was supposed to take. Everyone was very kind to me. No one wanted to talk about it. A few months later, I broke up with my boyfriend -- a relief, because my father could no longer stand to see him.

It could have made me very anti-abortion, my experience. I didn't want one. I was pressured into one by a lack of support, from anyone, for any other choice. I have never forgiven my parents, not really, even as I love them, even as I understand why they did it, even as I love the life I have now. This year, that child would have been eleven. I can't imagine how different my life would be. I am almost grateful. But not quite. My rage at my parents, then and now, is not that they would choose a different life for me, but that they would presume to choose for me at all, that they would take a choice that intimate, that central to me, literally viscerally important, away from me.

Nothing could have committed me more strongly to reproductive choice; if I feel this rage at having been pressured into an abortion, how terribly angry other women must be at being forced to make the sacrifices and take the risks to have a child, labor it into the world, when she never wanted to be pregnant at all. I wish I had been, back then, as intelligent and strong as this thirteen-year-old girl is, fighting the state, challenging the judge to allow her to choose what's best for her.

We have to stop this. We have to stop telling young women, I know better than you, who have to live in that body, what you should do with it. We have to stop telling them that what happens to them is shameful, or intolerable, or secret. When young women come into our lives, we have to support them better than this, whether we like their choices or not. If one adult in my life had made a stand for me, I would be writing this today, as I've written about it for ten years now, in prose and in poems, in fiction, in journals, in my head. Every time I write about it, I cry. Not from sadness, although it is very sad, but from anger at what was taken from me.

In the ten years I've written about it, I have never shown my parents what I write about it. More than anything, that makes me angry: that when they took my choice from me, they also demanded my silence as payment. And that after all this time, I am still paying."

SO, THAT'S THE STORY. After you've dried your tears, or swallowed your rage, read this aftermath-type comment from tinycatpants:

"Back in the old days, when we were stupid, we sat in college class after college class listening to professors as they tried to explain the tenets of French feminism. Basically, all I took from it was that these French philosophers thought/think that women and men are intrinsically different and that women, when freed from or indeed in order to be freed from patriarchal oppression, would learn to write in specific womanly ways.

What these ways were was and is the source of continual argument and, though I believe that there are fundamental differences between men and women, I don't know how one can say for certain which differences between people are based on sex, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, religion, education, etc. (The Shill and I heard Michael Bertrand from TSU say "I don't know how to separate a discussion of gender from one of race and class." I'm going to write about that, soon. I just haven't yet. But I think it's a wise admission to make.)

But anyway, listen to Helene Cixous, from her essay "The Laugh of the Medusa":

'I shall speak about women's writing: about what it will do. Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies -- for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Women must put herself into the text -- as into the world and into history -- by her own movement.'

There's been a lot of discussion about whether this kind of writing, here in cyberspace, linked to other writers, commented on and come back to, is l'ecriture feminine realized. I don't know, since I barely know what l'ecriture feminine means.

But I think I get what Cixous is up to in this paragraph, what she hopes for from women's writing, that it will value our experiences and make space for others to join us. And she also is not waiting around for permission or validation from hierarchies already in place.

You can see why blogging brings Cixous to my mind.

Anyway, this post is actually about abortion, I think. I've only rarely posted on abortion, though I think it's obvious that I'm rabidly pro-choice.

Today, I was reading Bitch. Ph.D . which led me here to Nyarlathotep's post about her abortion. That made me think again about l'ecriture feminine, about what it's like when women write themselves into history, and what it means that the best, most thoughtful writing about women's experiences isn't being done at colleges and universities, at least not sanctioned by those colleges and universities, but hidden (in the sense that it's anonymous and that it hasn't occurred to most of the "right" people to look here) in plain sight on the internet.

All our bravest writing...

When we were in college, when I was less rabidly pro-choice (still, pro-choice, but less inclined to have to stab you in the eye if you disagreed with me), I used to say that I could live with any legal status of abortion if that legal status were decided by women, if we all got together, heard each other out, and took a vote.

I even imagined something like this:


But with less smirking, since we'd be well-aware of the gravity of our decision, and more actual women present. I should stop being bitter about this picture, but I'm just not able.

Anyway, I think I'm trying to juggle too many things that are very closely linked in my mind, and so this post is wandering and making me bitter. For those of you who made it this far but can't figure out what the hell I'm trying to get at, here are the main points: 1. The traditional intellectual structures still can't figure out (or be bothered with trying to figure out) how to incorporate the wise and insightful female thinkers in their midsts, and so 1a. these wise and insightful female thinkers take their training from these traditional structures and head out here on the web to do their own things, which 1b. are brilliant and more meaningful than traditionally recognized forms of scholarship, even though this writing 1c. has a solid theoretical base in French feminism and l'ecriture feminine and 1d. should be in the classroom and in the discourse. 2. It still, years later, grosses me out that a bunch of men stood around smirking while they signed a law that will never directly affect them and 2a. I can't even articulate it because it makes me 2b. so angry I start to feel violent and it makes me 2c. feel very alienated from my country and so, 2d. I should just leave it alone."

Well, we know she never will, and neither will any of the women you've heard here. Neither will you.
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