Urgent! Anti-birth control radical put in charge of our birth control

In case you're not in the action network:
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What's wrong with this statement:

Late yesterday, the Bush administration announced the appointment of a staunchly anti-birth control extremist to a leadership role in the Office of Population Affairs.

You read that correctly — we simply couldn't make up something this outrageous. Please, take a moment right now to oppose the appointment of Susan Orr as the acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs.

Orr's anti-reproductive health stance is clear. She applauded President Bush's reinstatement of the global gag rule and urged him to revoke approval for mifepristone (formerly known as RU-486) — both while working for the notoriously anti-choice, anti-birth control, anti-sex education organization, the Family Research Council.

It is hard to imagine a more mismatched role for Orr than one in the Office of Population Affairs, the department that advises the secretary of health on policies concerning reproductive health. And Orr's new role? Why, it's to run the family planning program, of course.

The family planning program that Orr will run plays a critical role in ensuring that low-income families have access to contraceptive services.

In other words, a virulently anti-family planning radical is in charge of family planning. Appointments don't get more egregious than this — please, take action now.

If this situation sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve been here before. Less than a year ago, the Bush administration also tried to put Eric Keroack, whose anti-birth control stance rivals that of Susan Orr, in charge of family planning. After an outpouring of opposition, he stepped down from office – but the Bush administration is continuing its efforts to put ideology over science. Susan Orr’s appointment and an emerging crisis in the federal government’s birth control program make that clear (we'll be letting you know how you can help on this issue, as well).

Thank you for standing up for women who need reproductive health services by taking action today.

Sincerely,


Cecile Richards
President, Planned Parenthood Federation of America

P.S. Susan Orr's appointment is yet another obstacle to women seeking reproductive and other health services at Planned Parenthood health centers and elsewhere. See what else we're up against here.

technorati tags: birth control, Planned Parenthood Aurora, Orr, anti-choice

The power of blogging

Newsweek covers feminist blogging. Who would have thunk it? They point to the huge success of the 2004 March for Women's Lives that brought out more than one million people. In the three years since the march, this is the ONLY citation I can find on their website about it. I guess late is better than never, eh? Criticism aside, it does mention THIS BLOG! I feel a slight brush with fame since I wasn't here at the beginning. Word to Nathan, Carrie & the crew!

"Older feminists worry that ERA-era feminism's declaration that "the personal is political" has been lost on the latest generation, who don't realize that their personal struggles should be addressed collectively." Despite what some GenX/Millennial feminist bloggers may think, I think that what happened right here in Aurora, Illinois, blue-state that it is labeled, shows that the personal is STILL the political. What can be more personal than control over our reproduction? And clearly, what happens in our wombs is still hotly political. That's coming from a GenX feminist mom who has reproduced and pumped her way through the March. Seriously!

The piece ends with this:

The space for that conversation may be the Internet, on sites like Feministing, Feministe, Pandagon and Echidne of the Snakes. Valenti of Feministing.com says feminist blogs drove the million-plus turnout at the 2004 March for Women's Lives in Washington, D.C., and helped secure the opening earlier this month of a controversial Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Ill. But even if blogging can translate into real-world activism, will it be enough to hold a movement together? That's a question this generation of feminists will have to answer themselves.

I posed that question to PPCA CEO & President Steve Trombley. Did he feel that the feminist blogosphere was critical to the opening of the clinic?

I think that blogging can “hold the movement together” and that it definitely translates into “real-world activism” We wouldn’t have won the fight to open the Aurora clinic without the hundreds of local activists and thousands of national activists who showed up at rallies and contacted local officials in Aurora. While they may have heard about the fight from the media or from our action alerts — it was the blog that kept them involved in the fight. I heard this over and over from our supports both nationally and locally. As someone who started his career as an organizer I know that there is nothing more important than making sure that your activist are feeling “in the fight” and the blogging is a great way to give everyone a sense of being on the inside, of being involved and also ready to take action.

Thank you to everyone who visits and especially to those of you who take the time to comment. Thanks to everyone who reads and passes along information. Planned Parenthood serves the community and that is the mission for this blog. To serve you with information as long as it is needed and wanted. Now let's get out there and continue to make this world a better place.

technorati tags: Newsweek, feminist, feminist blogging, Planned Parenthood, Aurora, March for Women's Lives

In the Aurora City Council Meeting

Daily Kos’s Got a Grip has posted about their experience inside the Aurora City Council meeting. They do a great job examining the major arguments and falsehoods the anti-choice side kept spouting and takes them down one by one.

They also express frustration that Planned Parenthood did not have more people in the city council meeting itself to counter these claims.

We are extremely grateful for Got a Grip’s participation in the city council process. As you can see we were able to turn out hundreds in support of our clinic. While the pro-choice citizens of Aurora have mobilized and become engaged in this issue, in many cases it was too late for them to get on the list to speak for this meeting. We did encourage our supporters to sign up a head of time so they could make a statement. It seems that many choose not to and we can only speculate as to why that is – it’s clear from our turn out that it’s not for a lack of support.

In the meantime we will do everything we can to make it more clear to Aurora citizen’s that they must sign up to make a statement ahead of time and to support the Aurora resident’s who choose to do this. We hope we can count on Got a Grip’s support in getting the word out to more Aurora residents about the city council process and the need for residents to sign up ahead of time and comment on this issue. We’re working right now on finding out what the procedure will be for the next city council meeting and we will post that information as soon as we find out.

Got A Grip also expresses their frustration that there are not more people are not fully mobilized and aware that a woman’s right to access abortion services is not set in stone. If you are tired of the anti-choice people having their say at the expense of ours, join our email action network. We’ll keep you updated on how you can become involved.