Last week, I received a response from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to the letter I wrote her regarding Crisis Pregnancy Centers, and several tweets and emails I sent regarding the increasing attacks by Republicans on women’s rights – including HR3 – the so-called “No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act” which has since passed the House of Representatives.

As I have written previously, this bill would:
-Tax women who purchased insurance coverage that includes abortion care
–Tax employers who provide such insurance
-Stop Medicaid (health insurance for poor people) from covering abortions for women who have been raped unless it meets the Republicans narrowed criteria of “forcible rape”
-Create “Abortion Audits” for women who had abortions, to determine the cause of the unwanted pregnancy. If the women had not reported the abortion, and if they had been pregnant for reasons other than “forcible rape” she would have to pay a tax
-Allow doctors and hospitals to refuse life saving care to a pregnant women if such care would harm or kill her fetus.

I also contacted her about the vote to defund Planned Parenthood. Although the House voted for it, the Senate voted against it.

Senator Gillibrand affirmed her pro choice position:

I hope I am correct in taking this to mean that she will vote against the No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act if there is a Senate vote on it. Where do your representatives stand?

When pollution from coal-fired power plants makes its way into our bodies, it endangers out children’s health; At least 1 in 12, and as many as 1 in 6 women in the U.S. has levels of toxic mercury in her body that would put a baby at risk of developmental problems.

The Environmental Protection Agency is stepping up to defend our families whith updated protections to limit pollution in our air and water.

We need to support strong safeguards to clean up mercury from our nations biggest polluters – there’s no excuse for poisoning our air and water and putting our children at risk.

www.sierraclub.org/mercury

I was excited to see the above image in the Sierra Club’s Facebook news feed as a newspaper advertisement they ran last week because it conveys a message that I have been thinking about for a long time. I have been made an argument to conservatives the Republican Party platform contains a glaring contradiction. They are against tighter controls on air pollution, but believe that a fetus has the same (or more) rights than a baby, child, adolescent or adult – especially and adult woman. A developing fetus is more sensitive to toxins than a child or adult, so shouldn’t Republicans want to protect them with the same zeal they use when trying to limit or eliminate abortion? That they do not is maddening.

I’ve gotten a few different responses to my line of reasoning. Some just scratch their heads and say “I’ve never thought of that.” Others tell me I’m being stupid, or delusional and don’t understand my point at all. I’ve heard from some pro-lifers that they, personally are also environmentalists so there is no contradiction. Another told me that an abortion will definitely kill a fetus, but pollution has a less than 100% chance of doing damage so it’s more important to focus on stopping abortion first. Apparently a woman’s desire for an abortion or for a healthy child are meaningless.

But I do want to commend the Sierra Club for attempting to mainstream this argument. It’s an important one for environmentalists to make louder, clearer and more often. Most people don’t realize that as harmful as pollution is, children and fetuses are affected even more adversely because they are smaller and still developing. This issue is a great example of how feminism and environmentalism and feminism intersect. For women who want to be mothers, it is unfair that the chance to have a healthy baby can be taken away by the governments inaction on stopping industries from spewing poisons into the air.

Last week I went to see “How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre in New York City. The new production stars Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette.

I was familiar with the play having seen an amateur production a few years ago. It’s about a young man, J. Pierpont Finch, who smirks his way to the top of a corporation using a book with the same name as the show. The songs are catchy and while the play is very dated in terms of gender roles (more on that in a minute) that doesn’t make it worth skipping.

Radcliffe, at 21 is twelve years younger than Matthew Broderick was when he played the same role in a 1995 revival, and comes across as more fresh faced and earnest. He’s pitch perfect (pun intended) and an absolute delight to watch as Finch. Radcliffe’s American accent is spot on, and his comic timing is impeccable.

Advertisements for the play are reminiscent of the aesthetics of “Down With Love“, and I hoped that also meant sending up the sexual politics of the time with a wink and a nudge. It was an accurate impression. The cast was wonderful and I found a lot more humor in the play than I had appreciated before.

The way gender roles are dealt with in this play is in some ways inherent to the script, but different productions can and do make choices about how much of it to play straight and how much to poke fun at and satirize.

Rosemary
The character of Rosemary is Finch’s love interest and sings longingly of how she would be Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm in New Rochelle. The first time I heard this song I was very uncomfortable. I couldn’t decide if the point was that Rosemary’s supreme ambition in life was to be a housewife with no interests outside her husband or if her desires were supposed to represent what all women wanted. Perusing other productions on YouTube, another character interpretation is just that she’s just desperate for male attention. When Rose Hemingway took the stage in the current production and began to sing this song, I felt a palpable discomfort, which ceded to a few stifled giggles. Hemingway’s Rosemary is simply completely infatuated with Finch and might as well been singing about how he’s her “freshly baked love dumpling, fuzzy huggy squeezer and big old pokey bear.” It was really cute, and while faithful to how silly most of the characters in the play are at heart – much less insulting.

Heddy
Heddy La Rue is a more problematic character. She’s stupid (or at least we are meant to laugh at her ignorant gaffes) and has seemingly no sexual ethics. She claims to love Bigley but makes advances on Finch and then marries Womper at the drop of a hat. It’s unclear if she’s a libertine who wants to enjoy as much of her youth and beauty as she can – like say, Clementine Johnson from “Reno 911!” or if it’s her way of accessing power and status, or if she doesn’t really understand what she is doing. The sexy secretary is an old cliche and I don’t think cheesecake (or beefcake) is in and of itself always sexist. But I really feel bad for Heddy as a character – the play dumps a lot of abuse on her and it’s not explained if she understands that almost all of the other characters don’t respect her, either because of the lust or jealousy she invokes in them.

A Secretary Is Not A Toy
This song always makes me squirm. The men of World Wide Wickets are advised not to get involved with their secretaries because they have talents other than being fondled and flirted with, and on top of it you will be fired, with a bunch of silly puns and double entendres to make it rhyme. I’m at a loss as to the original intent of the song, or why it was funny – watching the video from the movie is painfully uncomfortable – and try as I might I can tell it was meant to be humorous but… I’ve got nothin’, and I think that says a lot for how much times have changed. However, I do like what the current production did with the song. I don’t like slapstick humor, at all, but the choreography suggesting the male characters were trying to cover up their arousal (and possibly more) was brilliant and hilarious. In addition, guffaw inducing visual aides were added to the song. In total it was a lot like “Its’ Easy MMMKay” from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, a spot on parody of how silly it is to say something that shouldn’t have to be said, but somehow must be said.

Paris Original
I’ve loved this song since the first time I heard it in my high school auditorium. It’s pretty much a feminist anthem about the Beauty Myth – no, really. Rosemary is ecstatic that she has found a dress that will make her beautiful enough for Finch to take notice of her. It’s like the fantasy of being thin, only using an article of clothing as the magical talisman rather than a change in weight. If I only had the perfect dress, (or car, or phone, or styling gel) I would be so attractive and and my dream guy (or lady) would fall head over heels for me. And then as quickly as the madness came on, your money is spent, the glow fades and you realize you’ve been had. The party continues on, playing out as it probably would have no matter what you (or anyone else) were wearing.

Cinderella Darling
This song opens Act 2, when Rosemary is considering quitting her job and breaking up with Finch because although he has declared his love and proposed to her, he put a (brief, week long) hold on their romantic relationship to focus on his career. The women in the cast will not stand for this rebellion. They sing to her, begging and pleading not to leave. Not because they care for her and will miss her friendship, or because Finch is a great guy and deserves a second chance, or even because she has a good job and shouldn’t let a personal relationship interfere. They tell her to stay because it’s so rare that a woman can fill the dream of marrying her boss, and if she leaves now, they will all lose hope that their bosses will ever propose to them because her actions would discourage them. Rosemary must stay and live out a fairy tale, because some of them will not get to experience one, except vicariously through her. It’s all so ludicrous I can’t decide to laugh or face|palm, but know this: Cinderella Darling is an excellent illustration of how patriarchy works. When all women are given is crumbs of respect, they will fight over and for them, and shame and ostracize anyone who dares ask for more – because she might cut off their supply of crumbs. This is not an indictment of women. It’s a thoroughly rational response.

In some ways, the drudgery of making a living as a white collar employee hasn’t changed much from How to Succeed through Dilbert and Office Space (which both will one day be just as dated) and that’s one of the reasons people still like this play. It’s actually more relevant now, more people work in those kinds of environments because there are a lot fewer jobs in manufacturing than there were in the 60’s, so more people are in on the jokes. And in spite my criticisms above, it was really cool to see Harry Potter singing about TPS reports.

Last month Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote this moving post about why he is pro-choice in the wake of the Republican party’s war on women. In the comments, SWNC posted an Anne Bradstreet poem. It is relevant to the fight to save reproductive rights in America today. Although New York City just passed a bill regulating Crisis Pregnancy Centers, Republicans nationally are closing in on not only abortion rights but access to contraception as well. We should remember how treacherous childbirth once was in the United States, and still is in other parts of the world.

Before the Birth of One of Her Children
All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joys attend;
No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
But with death’s parting blow are sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable,
A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon’t may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when the knot’s untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my days that’s due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know I have
Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory
And when thou feel’st no grief, as I no harmes,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms,
And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains
Look to my little babes, my dear remains.
And if thou love thyself, or loved’st me,
These O protect from stepdame’s injury.
And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse;
And kiss this paper for thy dear love’s sake,
Who with salt tears this last farewell did take.

Last week, Ian Murphy, a blogger at the Buffalo Beast, called Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, posing as conservative millionaire, and Tea Party funder David Koch. Walker believed that he was Koch, and admitted, among other things his strategies for busting the public unions of Wisconsin, that he had considered hiring people to disrupt the peaceful protests with violence and that he saw defeating the unions as akin to defeating communism.

This Sunday, on CNN’s Reliable Sources, the pundits complained that many in the media praised Murphy as a hero and bemoaned the fact that he was not demonized as Lila Rose, James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles were for trying to make people believe that Planned Parenthood and ACORN actively aided traffickers of underage girls.

KURTZ: Amy Holmes, MSNBC led with this hour after hour. The focus was on the embarrassment of Scott Walker. Nobody seemed to mention that this guy lied, that he committed a journalistic fraud, pretending to be someone else. Why?

HOLMES: Right. Well, I think because it fits their ideological framework. And I looked at this, and he was hailed as “Most Intriguing Person of the Day” by CNN. And you didn’t see the hand-wringing over journalistic ethics like you did, say, in the ACORN case, when those two young people used the same sorts of tactics of being an impostor and sort of — some people would say tricking people into participating in this. And there, there was a huge discussion about journalism and is this fair, is this right?

In this, it was, like, he’s a hero. He accomplished a feat, as you just heard.

KURTZ: I was also struck by CNN saying he was the “Most Intriguing Person.” If anybody who worked for CNN did what this guy did, they would have been fired.

Jim Warren, you want to get in on this?

WARREN: Yes. I mean, on one hand, I thought it was fascinating and revealing, what was going on in the governor’s mind in a certain sort of cynical pragmatism that was playing out on his side.

At the same time, I didn’t see this guy as performing any vaguely legitimate form of journalism. He was perpetuating an absolute hoax, starting with misidentifying himself. Although I think there are times when mainstream legitimate journalists can misidentify themselves. But, boy, it has to be for higher causes — maybe saving lives or actually revealing some huge systemic government fraud. In a case like this, just to embarrass, no.

KURTZ: And Steve —

PEARLSTEIN: He’s not a journalist. He’s a blogger. That doesn’t mean there’s not two overlaps between those two, but there is a difference between them, and you just identified one of them.

KURTZ: Well, look at the way it was picked up. We talked about MSNBC playing this. Fox News barely mentioned it, although Greta Van Susteren was interviewing Governor Walker, so she asked him about the call.

And as Amy points out though, when the ACORN sting happened — you remember James O’Keefe and the pimp and the prostitute — liberal commentators all attacked them, but Fox News played them up and that story up in a way that was much more favorable.

So how much of this is ideological.

HOLMES: Right. And the ACORN folks, they said that they were activists. They were very explicit about their point of view, where, in this case, oh, well, maybe he’s a blogger, maybe he’s a journalist. It doesn’t really matter and he doesn’t get any kind of criticism for his methods.

KURTZ: Are you giving — saying we should judge people like this by a different standard because they are not card-carrying newspaper journalists, they’re just bloggers, or they have online news sites?

PEARLSTEIN: Well, Howie, you sort of dismiss it with the question, well, they are not card-carrying. He’s not a journalist because he doesn’t behave like a journalist.

How do I know he doesn’t behave like a journalist? He does pranks like that. Journalists don’t do that. I’m not saying there’s not a legitimate function for it, but that’s not what journalists do.

Here’s the difference between Ian Murphy and Lila Rose.

Ian Murphy started with the premise that Scott Walker would talk to David Koch, but not to him. He knew the two had political ties, and wanted to find out more about their relationship and whether or not Walker was participating in illegal activity. All he really found was political dirt – but he never claimed otherwise. He presented the audio unedited to the world, and while his opinions are well known, he didn’t make any claims that the audio could not support.

Lila Rose started with the premise that Planned Parenthood aides and abets pimps who traffic underage girls. When she found no evidence of this, she insisted that it did. The films have been shown to be heavily edited, so it’s difficult to know what really went on.

Finally, there’s something satisfying about punching up. Ian Murphy was attacking a man who is trying to take the collective bargaining rights away from state employees like teachers, nurses, and prison guards. Lila Rose is attacking an organization that gives contraceptives and cancer screenings to poor people. If there’s a reason he seems more sympathetic to you, that’s probably it.

This recent article by Mark Regnerus of Slate has been making the rounds. Christopher Ryan is quoted at the end but stated on facebook that he disagrees with it and Violet Blue explained why it makes her uncomfortable (blog contains NSFW advertisements.)

I agree with Violet that the premise is inherently “slut shaming.” That is, it challenges the idea that women’s sexual autonomy is a good thing.

If women were more fully in charge of how their relationships transpired, we’d be seeing, on average, more impressive wooing efforts, longer relationships, fewer premarital sexual partners, shorter cohabitations, and more marrying going on.

This conclusion, upon which the entire article is based is stated as if it were self evident. It’s not. What people say is their ideal age for marriage is within a year of the average age most people do get married. I don’t think you can blame this year gap entirely on women having premarital sex. Economic factors like the price of student loans, the job market for young people and cultural factors like the acceptability of delayed marriage also play a part.

Regnerus is also extremely vague. What are more impressive wooing efforts? Our cultural fascination with engagement rings and extreme proposals has created an unrealistic standard for men to live up to. But I think Regnerus was saying that if women had their way they wouldn’t be having sex without those types of grand romantic gestures during early courtship. This is patently ridiculous – he’s painting grown women as little girl children demanding grand gestures and valuing sex with a partner no more than a sex worker does with her clients.

And that’s the heart of what I disagree with about this article. To reduce all sex to a commodity is dehumanizing. It removes all other factors from a persons behavior. Under this model a man never has tender or loving feelings for his partner, and a woman is incapable of lust. There is no such thing as mutual affection and pleasure, only a calculated transaction. Some people might view their sexuality in these terms, but it is patently false to insist that every human person does, not to mention the way this erases gay, lesbian and polyamarous people.

Imagine if we commodified other types of interpersonal interactions the way we do sex. What if we were shaming people and blaming advances in telecommunication for how it’s lowered the “price” of a conversation. In the olden days it took months for letters to travel across the ocean. Now with fairly cheap cell phones, people don’t wait for important events to communicate. They can call to say hello and chat at any time! It used to be you had to wait until Sunday afternoon or evening to make a long distance phone call without ruining your budget. Now people can Skype every night! Not feeling outraged? Me neither.

The role that the acceptability and reduced risks of premarital sex might play in delaying marriage is probably a good thing. It’s inadvisable for someone to make the serious life long commitment of marriage just because of lust and curiosity. Those who would say otherwise are usually pushing an agenda be it religious or natalist, but never with the interest of the young person held first.

Jill, a 20-year-old college student from Texas, is one of the many young women my colleagues and I interviewed who finds herself confronting the sexual market’s realities. Startlingly attractive and an all-star in all ways, she patiently endures her boyfriend’s hemming and hawing about their future. If she were operating within a collegiate sexual economy that wasn’t oversupplied with women, men would compete for her and she would easily secure the long-term commitment she says she wants.

Get that? Jill doesn’t want to marry her boyfriend because she loves him. She wants long term commitment – the unspoken assumption is that any man would be sufficient. This is what I talk about when I say that these narratives portray women as incapable of love. It’s disgusting.

And Regnerus doesn’t stop at misogyny – he is decidedly man hating as well:

Don’t forget your Freud: Civilization is built on blocked, redirected, and channeled sexual impulse, because men will work for sex. Today’s young men, however, seldom have to. As the authors of last year’s book Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality put it, “Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy.” They’re right. But then try getting men to do anything.

Do you understand that men? If you are getting laid, you are incapable of contributing to society. But it’s not your fault for being lazy, it’s those nasty women’s fault for having the sex with you that you thought you both wanted. The evil sex is why there has been no scientific, artistic or social progress made by men since the birth control pill was made available in 1960.

It’s really incomprehensible to me why feminists are the ones who supposedly hate men in this discussion. People like Regnerus can argue for stripping women of their autonomy and paint men as loutish slaves to their sex drive and it’s not immediately understood as hateful to both men and women. Instead, people nod along as if he’s speaking some great truth about human nature. He’s not. He’s simply repeating outdated tropes that have yet to fade into obscurity with the passage of time.

First Amendment Solutions Sunday is a series of posts with a quick link round up of actions you can take to exercise your First Amendment rights to help feminist, environmentalist or otherwise progressive causes.

Here are three reasons to call your Senator this week:

1. The League of Conservation Voters released its annual scorecard for Senators this week. How did your Senator do? Call to congratulate them for a job well done or urge them to do better next time

2. Congress voted to give themselves a few more months to decide what to do about the Patriot Act. It’s not too early to get yourself on the record with your Senator about opposing Civil Rights violations in the name of security theater.

3. The House of Representatives voted to defund Planned Parenthood. Call your Senators and tell them you stand with Planned Parenthood.

Other ways to get involved:

I was deeply disturbed by the sexual assault of Lara Logan, a reporter covering the revolution in Egypt, and the subsequent victim blaming that went on in the media. I have decided to make a donation to the women’s shelter and rape crisis center in my neighborhood. Women are victims of violence all of the world, not just when it makes international news.

Planned Parenthood New York City is having a rally this Saturday February 26th. Plan to attend here.

Finally, former Senator Russ Feingold is starting a new political action committee, Progressives United. It’s not clear yet how it will function – will it be similar to Move On or something else entirely?

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I wanted to write about John and Abigail Adams. They have been called America’s first power couple, and it’s said they shared the great American romance. My sources for this post are from the musical 1776, the book by David McCullough and HBO Miniseries John Adams and the book Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams by Lynne Withey.

I read John Adams in anticipation of the HBO miniseries. Before that, I had only thought of them as characters in one of my favorite musicals. McCollugh is an amazing storyteller, and he makes it easy to lose yourself in history. The pictures he paints of Philadelphia, Boston, New York and Paris of the late 18th century are so engaging. He quotes heavily from John and Abigail’s letters and personal diaries. They both had strong personalities which shone through in their writing.

The excerpts of the letters I have read are fascinating from a historical perspective, and so charming and moving. John and Abigail wrote to each other of their daily lives while he was away in Congress and later representing the United States to France, Britain and Holland. But the letters from their courtship are worth a read as well. They wrote to each other while John was traveling for his law practice, and when he went to be inoculated for small pox very soon before their wedding. The HBO miniseries really captures the trials of their marriage, and how much time they spent away from each other. This profoundly effected them and their relationship, and I think it’s what has captivated people about them. We romanticize separated lovers and John and Abigail’s story was not only true, it had a happy ending. They were reunited after years apart and spend their remaining years together.

I am currently reading Withey’s Dearest Friend which focuses on Abigail’s life. It’s very good so far and I would also recommend it.

Some have paralleled the pamphlets of the American Revolution with today’s blogosphere. The similarities are numerous. One of my favorites is that people in those days often took pseudonyms, like today’s screen names. Abigail went by Diana to some of her friends as a teenager and later as Portia. She often called John Lysander.

The thing I find most compelling about John and Abigail’s relationship is the deep respect they had for each other and that it was known to everyone that he valued her advice above all others. They were products of their time, but progressive on their ideas about the role of women. Of course, we only know of Abigail’s talents because of her husband. But that he was enthusiastic about her participation is remarkable for the time, and still admirable today.

The one thing I would really like to know about their story is whether of not there was a place called Cupid’s Grove in Massachusetts. Obviously in 1776, the term is used as a euphemism for having sex. It might very well have been… but John Adams referred to it with regard to both Abigail and her cousin Hannah, who he unsuccessfully courted before her. And in his memoirs he was adamant that he was chaste before marriage so I’m left wondering if it was a name he bestowed on a particularly scenic portion of countryside.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

While I’m waiting patiently for a time when we can have a discussion about reproductive justice and human trafficking without Young Republicans dressed up like pimps, I want to call attention to another video sting operation going on in the United States. Since 2009, the city of New York under Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been collecting evidence that people can buy guns illegally at gun shows around the United States. I learned about this project on The Rachel Maddow Show.

I had known that the mayor was working with other city and state governments on reducing the amount of illegal guns brought into NYC but I did not know that sting videos were being made.

I think that this project is a good idea and it’s different and from what Lila Rose and Live Action Films are doing for several reasons.

First, Mayor Bloomberg has solid evidence that these illegal guns kill people in New York City every year. Live Action Films has no such evidence that Planned Parenthood has ever aided or abetted sex traffickers. The issue of trafficking is being used to stir up outrage for the purpose of making abortion illegal and impossible to do safely.

Secondly, saying “I probably/don’t think I couldn’t pass a background check.” is deliberately vague enough that the sellers are breaking the law in not asking for a background check and yet this is not the same lying that went on in the Planned Parenthood sting videos. These actors are not saying “I am an ex-convict” for example, they are stating an opinion about their own ability to meet a standard.

Finally, Mayor Bloomberg has not named the dealers who sold the illegal guns to the public. Yes, their images and voices have been made public but there is no demonizing of them personally they are not called “murderers” or “gun runners” or “merchants of death” which they quite easily could be. They are simply part of a larger systemic problem of ignored gun laws in the Unites States. Bloomberg’s plan is to work within his network of mayors and governors to try and convince the Federal government enforce the law. Lila Rose’s goal is not for mandated reporting laws to be enforced – which in the firing of an employee, and reports to the police, FBI and US Attorney General they were. She has stated she wants to “bring down Planned Parenthood” and has no intentions to help trafficked women and children. Rose and her ilk want personal ruin for Planned Parenthood employees, and has proposed no alternative for the people who get contraceptives, care and testing for STIs and prenatal care from Planned Parenthood clinics.

If you have been following the news lately, you may have noticed a series of attacks on women’s reproductive rights. Rather than post a letter to Congress I’m writing this week – which I still encourage you to do, I’m going to list some other First Amendment Solutions you can employ to fight these attempts to restrict access to health care.

-The Republicans in Congress are sponsoring HR 3 which would make it illegal for private insurance companies to cover abortions. The “forcible rape” language has been dropped, no doubt in part due to the activism of thousands of feminists on twitter who used the #DearJohn hash tag to spread awareness of the issue. This is a victory to be savored, considering that the Republicans had no reason to do it as they had enough votes for it to pass the House and they knew it would never pass the Senate. They did it because the American public was a lot more feminist than they had expected, and didn’t want to look bad. Obviously they are saving face – but the fact that the public is on our side is heartening. #DearJohn is still going strong because although it’s no longer redefining rape, the bill is still unacceptable. If you have a twitter account, join the conversation. You can also send an email to congress opposing the bill here.

-An anti-choice group has made a series of videos they say depicts Planned Parenthood breaking the law. The full story is here, but there’s no reason to believe this is any different from the dishonest tactics used against ACORN or Shirley Sherrod. For a thorough response to the first “unedited” video, I recommend this post by Katie73. Amanda Marcotte is brilliant as usual here and here in response to the second video. There are ten more to go and while I wish we could have a real conversation about women’s health and how to better prevent unplanned pregnancies instead, it seems we have more mean-spirited conservatives dressing up like pimps to sit through first. On first hearing of this scandal, I made a donation to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and I encourage everyone to do the same. You can also use their website to find you local Planned Parenthood clinic. If you have some free time, call and see what volunteer opportunities are available. I have been a clinic escort, and it was a very worthwhile and rewarding experience.

-I’ve saved the worst for last. While HR 3 would limit a woman’s ability to pay for an abortion through private insurance, HR 358, the “Protect Life Act” could kill her. The bill would free hospitals of their legal obligation to treat pregnant women in emergency situations if the fetus would be harmed or killed or to provide an emergency abortion if the woman’s life was in danger. If your congressperson supports this bill, then I think a phone call, email or letter is in order. However, more than that, we should build on the momentum and success from what happened last week with HR 3. It wasn’t just tweets to John Boehner that took the language our of the bill, it was public outrage. So tell your friends and family about HR 358. Some are using #DearJohn to tweet about it, or think up a new hash tag. Post it on facebook. Don’t let these people hide behind the moniker of “pro life.” Denying women life saving care is anything but.