>The reproductive rights movement has relied very very heavily on
>litigation at the expense of building popular support and membership
>organizations. Faye Wattleton, who headed Planned Parenthood 1978-92 and
>now runs the Center for the Advancement of Women, agreed with me strongly
>when I made that point in an interview
><http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html#030717>. This is also true
>to a lesser degree of civil liberties, feminist, and enviro orgs - not the
>grassroots types, but the establishment ones.
>
>Doug
'Fore I forget: interview suggestion: Scott Poulson Bryant for his Hung: A mediation on the measure of Black men in America.
http://spbq.blogspot.com/2006/01/welcome-to-world-of-hung.html
As for the rest, I'm well aware of that -- the legislative strategy was actually devised in the 50s by the physicians who were afraid of punishment, lawsuits, etc. It was the physicians law enforcement went after at the time.
Frankly, I don't give a shit about building grassroots support and making sure everyone is peachy keen about it. That wouldn't have changed jackshit in terms of these wankers who want to eliminate abortion. I look at what happens here on the left and I'm fed up with the minority pockets of assholes lefty men on this list who can't be bothered with it. I used to deal with Christian conservatives and debate them, try to make compromises or learn from one another. Then I encountered the pockets of a-holes on this list, among the left, and I have become more militant than I've ever been in my life about this issue.
In a jar daddio, in a jar. And the sooner women start saying that the better. We should wear hooker boots while doing so, too.
One of the reasons why you couldn't work simply at the legislative level or locally is the fact that support for abortion was, especially at the time, radically different and could be so from one county to the next. That changed and now it's sinking back to its worst level. Yoshie right about freestanding clinics, too.
What was amazing to me, down here, is that they aren't actually under armed guard with bullet proof windows. But I cut my abortions rights activist teeth in Terry Randall country. So.
Furthermore, there were already strong lefty movements in place behind this with networks built up to support women having abortions when it was illegal. One of older, well-respected marxists who used to post to the list wrote about it very movingly and elogently.
Additionally, in a book I read about the history of the movement, well before, in the late 60s almost every single major magazine carried articles that argued in favor of abortion rights. This was part of a strategy to bring awareness of the problem to the fore and educate the public.
But, once again, yakking about this so-called problem hardly matters. We don't sit around worrying about what the fuck NOW is doing -- at least I don't -- and NOW doesn't give a shit about what I think.
HA! I got a nasty letter from someone from NOW because she didn't like my imagery on the blog.
Fuck NOW!
K(m)anarchist
Bitch | Lab http://blog.pulpculture.org