February 12, 2009

Its About . . . Well, Err . . . Hmmm
By Richard Venus

“If your vagina could talk, what would it say, in two words?”
Slow down.
Is that you?
Feed me.
I want.
Yum. Yum.
Oh, yeah.
Start again.
No, over there.
Lick me.
Stay home.
Brave choice.
Think again.
More, please.
Embrace me.
Let’s play.
Don’t stop.
More, more.
Remember me?
Come inside.
Not yet.
Whoa, Mama.
Yes yes.
Rock me.
Enter at your own risk.
Oh, God.
Thank God.
I’m here.
Let’s go.
Find me.
Thank you.
Bonjour.
Too hard.
Don’t give up.
Where’s Brian?
That’s better.
Yes, there. There.
Eve Ensler, who wrote those words, has helped us all on a journey of truth telling, of saying the unsayable. She helps us move beyond the part we talk about and the part we don’t. And as Gloria Steinem writes in the introduction to Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, the central ceremony of patriarchal religions is one in which men take over the power of creation. Male religious leaders perpetuate the notions that humans were born in sin--because we were born to female creatures, a la, another Eve. “Only by obeying the rules of the patriarchy can we be reborn through men. No wonder priests and ministers in skirts sprinkle imitation birth fluid over our heads, give us new names, and promise rebirth into everlasting life. No wonder the male priesthood tries to keep women away from the altar, just as women are kept away from control of our own powers of reproduction. Symbolic or real, it’s all devoted to controlling the power that resides in the female body.”
 Sex abounds, indeed. And so do sexual images, and both sexual repression and sexual exploitation in schools, the media, literature, and advertising. While flooded by sexual images on movie and television screens, we are called scoundrels for looking. Human sexuality is considered a private matter. One’s sexual orientation, habits, behavior are deeply personal and do not easily lend themselves to public debate. Nevertheless, sex ought to be out of the closet and into our conversations, guided by wisdom, insight, and care for the listener’s ability to hear and understand. Thank you Eve Ensler for helping us get there.
Which brings me to Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, who had tried everything, but who had failed, in spite of many attempts, to have children. Finally, their doctor said, “Listen, there is absolutely no physiological reason why you should not have children. It is undoubtedly a matter of tension. You’re trying too hard. Go home and forget the whole thing. Don’t take temperatures, don’t worry about the time of the month. Just live as normal a life as possible without concern for procreation. If on any occasion, however, you should have the impulse to have sex, then don’t wait. Follow your instincts.”
Some months later, Mrs. Simpson was back in the doctor’s office and the tests showed that she was indeed pregnant. “Did you follow my advice?” the doctor asked.
“Yes we did doctor, and it worked,” Mrs. Simpson replied. “We lived a normal, carefree life, and then one evening at dinner, I dropped my napkin. I bent to pick it up and so did my husband. Our fingers touched beneath the table and it was like an electric shock going through the two of us. We remembered what you said, and we just stopped in the middle of dinner and made love under the table. And that’s when I got pregnant.”
“I’m delighted,” the doctor said, “and I can imagine just how pleased you are.”
“Completely happy, doctor, except for one thing. The maitre’ d won’t let us into the restaurant anymore.”
There are times when it seems that our sexuality drives us, rather than the other way around. We are sexual beings, created in part to perpetuate the species, and that drive, for most of us, becomes too strong to resist as well as a delightful pleasure.
Our conversations, discussions, and teaching about sex are, at times, distorted and limited by those in society who would have us keep the topic a private, family matter. The darkness that surrounds our sexual lives is not just what we do in the dark, but also what we keep out of the light of discussion and public reflection.  
The late Robert Maplethorpe must be laughing at the likes of the American Family Association and others who would limit and define the conversation about human sexuality to what they deem appropriate. A few years ago, detractors of Maplethorpe’s photographic prints of sexually explicit images, including whips, leather, fists and fingers in unusual places, sought to close down his exhibit at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center. The Center, however, refused to be intimidated and stood firm in its right to exhibit what it believed to be fine art.
Some of Maplethorpe’s vision I find unappealing, offensive, and perhaps sensational for the sake of sensation. I also find that censoring such art stifling to the creative process. John Frohnmayer was fired as head of the National Endowment of the Arts for his support of Maplethorpe and the Museum’s right to exhibit what it felt was fine art. At the time, Frohnmayer said “The arts communicate to us before they are understood.” And so it is. Great art helps us see and understand the world in new ways, and so it will be misunderstood for it is ahead of us.
Censorship of such only hinders our ability to see in new ways. To conclude in advance that what is depicted by the artist is evil, or obscene or wrong, when what it may be communicating we do not yet understand, limits our growth. We may decide some artists work is not for us, or that it ought not be viewed by children, or even dangerous, but we ought to determine for ourselves what is great art. Such choices should not be left to politicians and clergy.
There are some clearly marked evidence of pornography where persons depicted have been coerced into acts or poses they would not otherwise agree to, or when violence is used against participants and persons are used in demeaning, dangerous or dehumanizing poses or activities. The erotic, on the other hand, includes persons depicted in relationships, and the material suggests pleasure, not pain, and foreplay, kissing, massage, mutual undressing, softness, vulnerability, intimacy.
The erotic is of our nature, part of being whole. The photographer Duane Michaels writes, “What is this want that makes me turn to look at you? I do not know. It is of me as is my breath. Do you tell yourself to breathe? It is my nature, and being nature is not right or wrong or good or bad, but innocent of purpose. It is my body’s music and its truth. And I become a queer and peculiar thing, out of harmony, when I silence my song because you find it inappropriate.”
Our sexuality is part of our song, for all of our lives. It changes as we age. It matures as we mature. So it was for a woman of advanced years who anxiously went to a psychiatrist. “Doctor,” she said, “I have a problem. My husband is losing his potency and I am anxious to discover if the condition is psychological or if the cause is physical.”
The psychiatrist was taken back and asked, “How old are you madam?”
“Eighty,” was her reply.
The psychiatrist scratched his head and then asked, “and how old is your husband?”
“Eighty-three.”
Now the psychiatrist seemed stumped. He brooded a bit and tried again. “Well, when did you first notice he was losing his potency?”
“Oh, I first noticed it last night, but what troubles me is that I noticed it again this morning.”
I was asked to speak on behalf of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, namely an organization that works to provide careful, honest information about abortion. I find that I cannot speak about abortion, however, in the absence of an appreciation of our basic sexuality.
Our understanding of our sexuality informs how we act and influences how we think. And human sexuality is changing in part due to the work of feminist scholars, including Sharon Welsh and Carol Gilligan. Both have pioneered in helping us understand how men and women see the world differently, and as Gilligan reports, “Women’s place in man’s life cycle has been that of nurturer, caretaker, and helpmate, the weaver of those networks of relationships on which she in turn relies. But while women have thus taken care of men, men have, in their theories of psychological development, as in their economic arrangements, tended to assume or devalue that care. When the focus on individuation and individual achievement extends into adulthood and maturity is equated with personal autonomy, concern with relationships appears as a weakness of women rather than as a human strength.”
Women have known what men are beginning to discover, that intimacy, relationships, and caring are vital, fundamental to human growth and wholeness. For women, morality is based on the elaboration of what makes relationships work and help and heal. What Freud and others have led us to believe is that doing and living by what builds relationships is morally insufficient. Morality built on what is best for the individual, as men often see it, is seen by some psychoanalysts as a higher form of moral development. The irony is that women’s understanding has led us toward a kind of morality based not on the primacy and universality of individual rights, but rather on what Gilligan describes as a “very strong sense of being responsible to the world.”
Gilligan and others have helped us see sex in context. Sex is attraction. Sex is connection. Sex is joyful play. Sex is intense, fulfilling, and bonding. Sex can also be abusive, and controlling, and painful. Sex is our creation, a way of being with another. How we are together ranges from playful and joyous to vengeful and painful.
In the context of our sexual natures I can share with you some statistics about abortion:

• Each year, there are 750,000 teen pregnancies, 82% of which are unintended.
• 31% of young women become pregnant at least once before the age of 20.
• Teen mothers are less likely to complete high school.
• The sons of teen mothers are 13% more likely to end up in prison.
• Teen daughters are 22% more likely to become teen mothers themselves.
• Each year, 9 million teens and young adults acquire an STD.

Since the legalization of abortion throughout the U.S. in 1973, abortion services have become more widely accessible and knowledge of them has grown.  As a result, the overwhelming majority of abortions are performed in the first trimester of pregnancy.  For a number of reasons, however, abortion after the first trimester remains a necessary option for some women. 
Unfortunately, anti-choice activists seek to limit access to abortion through, among other means, laws imposing a fixed date for fetal viability and bans on certain procedures, many of which could limit access to abortion during all stages of pregnancy. 
In fact, the same anti-choice activists who would limit access to abortions after the first trimester also oppose access to abortion in the first trimester by advancing numerous restrictions, including parental involvement laws and mandatory delay laws. Also, by asserting their bias at a local level through picketing doctors’ homes and offices, clinic blockades, threats of violence against doctors, and the misapplication of zoning laws, etc., they create a climate so threatening that the number of qualified providers is diminished.  These actions endanger the health of women and the right of physicians to determine the most appropriate treatment for their clients.
·  Between 1997 and 2000, the number of abortions in the United States fell from 1,186,039 to 857,475 (CDC, 2000).  The CDC estimates that 58 percent of legal abortions occur within the first eight weeks of gestation, and 88 percent are performed within the first 13 weeks.  Only 1.4 percent occur after 20 weeks (CDC, 2000).
·Since the nationwide legalization of abortion in 1973, the proportion of abortions performed after the first trimester has decreased because of increased access to and knowledge about safe, legal abortion services (Gold, 1990).
America’s leading medical and public health experts support responsible sex education including: The American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Public Health Association, and the Society of Adolescent Medicine, support responsible sexuality education that includes information about both abstinence and contraception as well as leading education experts such as the National Education Association, The American Federation of Teachers, The National School Boards Association, and the American Association of School Administrators.

(Use excerpts/some of the following)
Polls consistently show support for balanced, responsible sex education above 80% in nearly every demographic. Some polls even show support for sex education that includes information about contraception and abstinence to be above 90%.
3000 B.C.  Condoms made from such materials as fish bladders, linen sheaths, and animal intestines.
1500 First spermicides introduced which used condoms made from linen cloth sheaths and soaked in a chemical solution and dried before using.
1838 Condoms and diaphragms made from vulcanized rubber.
1873 The Comstock Act passed in the United States prohibiting advertisements, information, and distribution of birth control and allowing the postal service to confiscate birth control sold through the mail. 
1916 Margaret Sanger opens first birth control clinic in the United States.  The next year she was deemed guilty of “maintaining a public nuisance” and sentenced to jail for 30 days, once released, she re-opened her clinic and continued to persevere through more arrests and prosecutions. 
1938 In a case involving Margaret Sanger, a judge lifted the federal ban on birth control, ending the Comstock era. Diaphragms became a popular method of birth control.  
1950 While in her 80s, Sanger underwrote the research necessary to create the first human birth control pill. She raised $150,000 for the project, and in 1960 the first oral contraceptive, Enovid, was marketed in the United States as invented by Frank Colton. 
1960’s Intrauterine devices (IUDs) first manufactured and marketed in the United States.
1963 The General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association passed a resolution condemning the existing laws as “an affront to human life and dignity.” The resolution supported legalized abortion to protect a woman’s life, physical or mental health, in cases of rape and incest, serious fetal deformity, and whenever a “compelling reason, physical, psychological, mental, spiritual, or economic” existed.
1965 The Supreme Court upheld the right of married couples to seek contraception in the landmark case Griswold v. Connecticut. Seven years later this right was extended to unmarried couples in Eisenstadt v. Baird.
1967 Pro-choice clergy in New York form the Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion to assist women seeking abortions to find safe services. The founder, Reverend Howard Moody of Judson Memorial Church in New York, was an American Baptist minister. He was soon joined by Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Reform Rabbi. Within a year, the clergy service had 1,400 members throughout the nation.
1967 The Central Conference of American Rabbis (Reform Judaism) declared, “We strongly urge the broad liberalization of abortion laws in various states, and call upon our members to work toward this end.”
1967 The general convention of the Episcopal Church adopted a resolution affirming abortion rights, within limits.
Late 1960’s Feminists challenged the safety of oral contraceptives (“the Pill”) as a result of confirmed serious health risks associated with it. Successful efforts led by feminist groups and consumer activists, along with well-publicized congressional hearings, led to modifications of the Pill.
1970 The Presbyterian Church USA adopted a report from the Council on Church and Society titled, “Sexuality and the Human Community” in which it was stated that abortion should be taken out of the realm of the law altogether and be made a matter of the personal ethical decision of a woman, her physician , and her pastor or “other counselor.”
1970 In a special session of the General Conference, the United Methodist Church approved a resolution on the “population crisis” that said states should “remove the regulation of abortion from the criminal code, placing it instead under regulations relating to other procedures of standard medical practice. Abortion would be available only upon request of the person most directly concerned.” This was the church’s first official position on abortion.
1971 The General Synod, the most widely representative United Church of Christ meeting, called for the removal of all legal prohibitions on a woman’s right to choose and the expansion of counseling, education, and family planning services.
*1973 The right to safe, legal abortion was affirmed in the Supreme Court Decision, Roe v. Wade. The court found that even though the Constitution “does not explicitly mention any right of privacy,” the 1st, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 14th Amendments do support privacy rights. The court decided this “right of privacy” was “broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether to terminate her pregnancy.” The Court's determination of whether a human fetus can enjoy Constitutional protection is separate from the notion of when life begins. The Court said, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in … medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
1973 Mainline Protestant and Jewish leaders met at the United Methodist Building in Washington, DC, to discuss the Roman Catholic Church’s pledge to overturn the new U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. This meeting, called by the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, led to the formation of the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (RCAR).  RCAR became the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice  (RCRC) in 1993.
1975 The United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism Biennial Convention resolved that it “continues to affirm its strong support for the 1973 Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade. Any weakening or limitation, or withdrawal of Roe v. Wade is sure to produce tragic consequences. In light of the recent Supreme Court decision, we must be diligent in our efforts to safeguard and preserve the full personal and religious freedom given to the American people.” 
1975 The Dalkon Shield, a popular IUD, recalled under charges that it had caused infertility in thousands of users. Although other IUD designs were not implicated, all IUDs were taken off the market under fear of litigation.
1976 Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, eliminating federal funding of abortions for women on Medicaid and sharply reduced their access to abortion services.
1980’s and 1990’s Hormonal birth control methods expanded to include implants and injectables. Low-dose pills were introduced.
*1992 Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.  This Supreme Court decision opened the door to state restrictions on abortion, by articulating the “undue burden” test for determining whether a restriction was unconstitutional, moving away from the more stringent “strict scrutiny” and “compelling interest of the state” tests.  All the laws passed by Pennsylvania’s state legislature were permitted, except requiring a husband’s consent for an abortion.  After this, state laws were passed requiring waiting periods, informed consent, parental consent for minors, and most recently, restrictions on the surgical procedures, increasing the cost of abortions, and reducing access for poor, rural, minority, and teenage women.
1992 Emergency contraception became more widely available, but FDA restrictions still required prescriptions for minors.
What some religious organizations say:
Episcopal Church, 1988
The Book of Common Prayer affirms that “the birth of a child is a joyous and Solemn occasion in the life of  family. It is also an occasion for rejoicing in the Christian community” (p.440). As Christians we also affirm responsible family planning.
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), From “Problem
Pregnancies and Abortion,” 1992
Problem pregnancies are the result of, and influenced by, so many complicated and insolvable circumstances that we have neither the wisdom nor the authority to address or decide each situation….We affirm the ability and responsibility of women, guided by the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit, to make good moral choices in regard to problem pregnancies. The considered decision of a woman to terminate a pregnancy can be a morally acceptable, though certainly not the only or required, decision.
United Methodist Church, 2008  Social Principle on Abortion
Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion. But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and well-being of the mother and the unborn child. We recognize tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion, and in such cases we support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures. We support parental, guardian, or other responsible adult notification and consent before abortions can be  performed on girls who have not yet reached the age of legal adulthood. We cannot affirm abortion as an acceptable means of birth control, and we unconditionally reject it as a means of gender selection. We oppose the use of late-term abortion known as dilation and extraction (partial-birth abortion) and call for  the end of this practice except when the physical life of the mother is in danger and no other medical procedure is available,
Union for Reform Judaism, 1975 (reaffirmed 1981, 1990)
• Affirm our unwavering commitment to the protection and preservation of the reproductive rights of women; pledge our presence and support wherever, whenever, and for however long our goal may require it at the federal, state and local levels of government; further, we affirm our commitment to work in coalition with compatible pro-choice groups.
• Endorse the 1973 United States Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade and deplore all attempts, legislative and judicial, to dismantle it.
United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism, 1975 (reaffirmed 1989)
Jewish tradition cherishes the sanctity of life, even the potential of life which a pregnant woman carries within her. Under certain unfortunate circumstances, such as when the life or health of the mother are in jeopardy, Judaism sanctions, even mandates, abortion. Judaism does not, however, condone or permit abortion for contraceptive purposes;
Catholics for Choice, 1999
There is much in the Catholic tradition that supports the pro-choice position. There is a mistaken belief that the Catholic Church has spoken definitively and unchangingly on abortion. However, a careful reading of church documents shows that while the prohibition of abortion is a serious teaching, room remains for Catholics to support the legalization of abortion and even its morality in a wide range of circumstances. And an examination of core principles of Catholic theology reveals a tradition that respects the capacity of individuals to make moral decisions.
Young Women's Christian Association of the USA, 1970, 1973, 1988
The position of the YWCA is not "pro-abortion." It is a position supporting a woman's right to make an individual decision based upon her own religious and
ethical beliefs and her physician's guidance.

Unitarian Universalist Association, 1963 (reaffirmed 1968, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1978, 1980, 1987)
 Therefore be it resolved that the 1987 General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association reaffirms itshistoric position, supporting the right to choose contraception and abortion as legitimate aspects of the right to privacy
Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, 1981
American Friends Service Committee, 1970 (reaffirmed 1989)
United Church of Christ, 1987
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), 1975 (reaffirmed 1989)
One of the hats I am wearing today is as the chair of the Ohio Ohio Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. I want to offer this as a guideline for our work regarding abortion. Its mission statement reads: The Ohio Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice brings the moral power of religious communities to bear to insure reproductive choice through education and advocacy. The Coalition seeks to give clear voice to the reproductive issues of people of color, those living in poverty, and other underserved populations.
It seems that this organization gives us a way of understanding what we need to do on behalf of women and men in need of an abortion or reproductive health assistance and can be used in any discussion about abortion and women’s rights.
While most religious bodies seem to support abortion there is fundamental disagreement about the beginning of life, or personhood and therefore when an abortion is allowable differs greatly.
As I see it there are two basic positions being lifted up in this debate and both are right. There is the argument that life begins at conception and an abortion is therefore taking a life and is murder. The other position is that life begins somewhere after viability and an abortion before, or in some cases after, that moment is allowable. There are then arguments in all directions whether taking a life is a right choice or not. The problem is that both sides on this debate are right. Of course, it is wrong to take a life, and of course it is the right of a woman to decide whether the fetus inside her should be carried to full term.
Those who argue that taking a life, even that of a few days old fetus, is killing, must be asked if there is ever a time when taking another’s life is wrong. They are confronted with the reality of war, and the death penalty.
Those who say the mother has a right to choose to terminate the fetus must be asked if she has the right to take a helpless infant’s life.
I therefore argue, given there is right on both sides of this argument that an injunction against abortion is wrong, just as a demand that the mother bring the fetus to full term is also wrong. Because there are two rights in this debate it then creates a terrible dilemma for a pregnant woman and her partner. Either she alone, or with her partner must make the decision, based not on a hard and fast law, but on what is the most life enhancing decision. By life enhancing I mean what decision will best serve the ultimate good.
It is in relationships where sex is made most real, in relationships where love and caring and intimacy are shared. I therefore digress for a moment to remind us of sex in context, by sharing a story from Rabbi Kushner:
“I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sand castle by the water’s edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing, and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle. I realized that they had taught me an important lesson. All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other people endure. Eventually, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who has somebody’s hand to hold will be able to laugh.”
Some of what we see about us these days between men and between women is absurd, unlovely. The illogical, the unreasonable are clear enough. Yet, caring relationships are more powerful than the absurd, the unlovely, the mean. Love that is celebrated, cherished, and offered, as best we can, has the power to transform. In that context decisions about abortion are to be made, not in a court of law or the by the imposition of a prohibition by a religious legislative body.
I read books. I read about the biology of love and learned that men aren’t the only creatures to make dinner dates, that black-tipped flies and road runners also offer food to their dates, in hopes of receiving sexual favors. I learned that flirtatious women who toss their hair and cock their heads are repeating a gambit that’s millions of years old, that female opossums and mud turtles engage in similar displays. I learned that human beings share a taste for French kissing similar to a type of chimpanzee. Some, I learned, say love is simply biology. I even read a book on love by an MIT philosophy professor. It doesn’t get much more erudite that that. In all of this I got what books say, but was left disappointed. What we want is not the biological or the philosophical or psychological rational for love. We want to be able to do more than know about love, we want to experience it. We want it to be real. Books can tell us about it. We must risk offering it to receive it. It is the same for the decision we might have to make regarding an abortion. We want to know we are making the right choice, we want to experience the feeling of being right. I know several women who have, but others never experienced that finality because this is a decision that involves two rights.
What psychologists and psychiatrists have discovered is that attachment, the need to be connected to another, is buried deep in the primal part of our brain, it penetrates the core of what it means to be a human being. That may be what a woman who has had an abortion also experiences for much of her life. How she understands the nature of attachment is crucial in her understanding of her decision.
At the heart of human sexuality is the call to be connected. It is hardwired into our brains. Dr. Rachel Remen describes a homeless woman whose visits to her doctor were complicated by her need to take with her all of her worldly possessions in a shopping cart, which she lashed to parking meters, one at a time, and hauled it up a steep San Francisco hill to his office. Her doctor treated her so kindly that this woman would return to his office even though she had no appointment and he was not there. She returned, it seems, to perform a simple ritual that somehow connected her to that doctor in that place. That was all she needed.
Dr. Remen then reminds us, “The places where we are genuinely met and heard have great importance to us. Being in them may remind us of our strength and our value in ways that many other places we may pass through do not.... The places in which we are seen and heard are holy places. They remind us of our value as human beings. They give us the strength to go on.” And in those relationships where we are genuinely met are the places where our sexual natures are truly known and nurtured.
In decision making of the ultimate kind, the place where we need to be as lawyers, or doctors, or mothers or husbands or caregivers or friends is being with. It is in connection that we find the comfort, the wisdom and the strength to do that which is right.