Unhealthy Legislation Comes Sweeping Down the Plains
March 23, 2012
We supporters of women’s health and freedom have a very important date coming up here in Oklahoma.
On this upcoming Tuesday, MARCH 27, the House Public Health Committee will be hearing a couple of nasty bills aimed at limiting the freedom of adult women:
1. SB1433 - Creating the Personhood Act, which gives all rights of citizenship to a blastocyst.
2. SB1274 – Heartbeat Informed Consent Act, which makes it mandatory for a doctor to ask a woman seeking an abortion if she would like to hear a “heartbeat” before proceeding with the procedure.
This may be the last chance for the public (that’s us!) to defeat this bill. Just as a reminder, SB 1433 declares a fertilized egg (a microscopic blastocyst) a person, AND SO threatens legal access to and use of contraceptives, IVF treatment, and on and on. We can stop this in committee! If you make only one call and write only one email, please let it be to the chair asking that these bills simply not be considered. They aren’t worth the time. The chair’s info:
Representative John Enns (R)
john.enns@okhouse.gov
(405) 557-7321
Here’s the email addresses of all the committee members. It would be awesome if we could all email them all. Just create one email, copy and paste. NBD (that’s hip, young, cool lingo for No Big Deal).
ed.cannaday@okhouse.gov
weshilliard@okhouse.gov
jadine.nollan@okhouse.gov
sean.roberts@okhouse.gov
corey.holland@okhouse.gov
ronpeters@okhouse.gov
colby.schwartz@okhouse.gov
randy.grau@okhouse.gov
jeanniemcdaniel@okhouse.gov
mike.ritze@okhouse.gov
A body has only one owner.
KEEP BIRTH CONTROL LEGAL, OKLAHOMA!
February 16, 2012
All right, people of Oklahoma. We have got to do something to stop Senate Bill 1433 – AKA “The Personhood Bill” – from passing through our great state’s House of Representatives. Here’s what we need to do. We need to write AND call our Representatives. BOTH write AND call.
The bill passed the state Senate yesterday in a 43 – 8 vote. Next, it will go to a House committee, after March 1st. We can stop this bill in the House committe. But you have to tell your Representative that you don’t like it, and you want her or him to vote against it. If you know why this bill is no good for us, you can stop reading now and call the capitol: 1.800.522.8502.
In case you want to read this poorly written, vague piece of poop (it’s VERY brief): SB 1433.
If you don’t know how you feel about this bill and you feel like reading more, here is a quick list of reasons why this bill is a bad thing (in my humble, completely objective opinion).
1. HEALTH. The good ladies of Oklahoma need to keep our right to basic, safe, preventative birth control completely legal. Even if a couple uses a condom EVERY SINGLE TIME they have vaginal hetero intercourse, sometimes the condom breaks. Then she or he has to go get a back-up method of birth control. Usually it’s PLAN B, or some other form of emergency contraceptive. THIS IS NOT AN ABORTION PILL. This is basically a high dose of oral contraception. But if this bill passes, this form of birth control could become illegal. Not OK. Very scary. We are trying to avoid becoming pregnant in the first place, and we don’t need to make it more difficult.
2. STATE IMAGE. Seriously, if you want to attract young, smart, professional women and men to Oklahoma, don’t go inserting laws into the bedroom and make having sex here so risky.
3. SANITY. Thinking that a zygote needs rights and protections like a tax-paying citizen is insane. It’s nothing more than professing morality loudly, not out of concern for another’s life and health and happiness, but for personal gain. People actin’ all holier-than-thou.
A special note to men: we really need your help on this one. We need you to talk about it at work. We need you to call and write letters. We need to show the author of this bill, who happens to be a man, that Oklahoma men are taking responsibility and owning the fact that they play a part in reproduction. Husbands, brothers, boyfriends, baby daddies, co-workers, fathers… please?
A special note to Republicans and social conservatives: I come from a politically split family, and I’m registered as an Independent. I really don’t think this is a partisan issue, but the fact is that Oklahoma’s Republican majority is championing this bill. To me, and my Libertarian tendencies, this is about government intrusion. I know you were all pissed when Wikipedia went down and the government was trying to censor the internet. I know you get mad about TSA pat-downs. Now apply the same back-off logic to your/ our internal organs. It is nothing less than hypocritical to decry big government and at the same time try to restrict reproductive freedom. Trying to control citizens’ bodies is paternalism at its worst.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can call the author of this bill, Senator Brian Crain and express yourself to him or his secretary: 405.521.5620.
We have until the beginning of March to do this, folks!
Together!
Spring
Planned Parenthood Saved My Life, Too!
February 2, 2012
Hey, Planned Parenthood! Remember that time you caught my pre-cancer before it became full-blown cancer? And you referred me to a really badass doctor who was kind and smart, and she got all that cancerish shit out of me? THAT WAS AWESOME!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!
For more stories like mine, you gotta go here: PLANNED PARENTHOOD SAVED ME.
Thanks to my friend Maurice for showing me this site. It’s a great response to all the haters that have been hating on PP lately.
To healthy bodies!
Spring
Mary “Comstock” Fallin
April 20, 2011
Governor Mary Fallin, first female Governor of this state, signed 2 anti-abortion bills into law today. They are strict. From the Tulsa World article:
The first bill is called the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” and is based on the premise that a fetus can experience pain after 20 weeks of gestation. It includes an exemption for abortions performed when the life of the mother is at risk or if there is a risk of physical impairment of a “major bodily function.”
This bill also seeks prison time for doctors who perform abortion after 20 weeks. If you were a doctor in Oklahoma, would you just stop offering abortion services altogether considering the irrational vitriol aimed at your practices? I wouldn’t either, but I’m afraid many more will, as many already have. Oklahoma has 6 abortion providers. 6. In the whole state. And that was in 2008. Oklahoma women already have an extremely difficult time finding safe, private birth control services. 96% of Oklahoma counties have NO abortion provider.
And, as if we didn’t have enough anti-choice legislation (SEE), now we have more. And now we have a woman telling all the other women in the state that they don’t know what’s best for them. What a self-hating, SCUMbag. What do all these anti-choice politicians want? To make abortion totally illegal? Um, yes:
“Abortion is currently legal in Oklahoma, but I believe a majority of Oklahomans would vote to eliminate elective abortions if they were given the chance to do so,” Rep. Dennis Johnson (R-Duncan) said.
All this ignorance grossing you out? Me too.
Spring
Dear Friends of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Tulsa,
TU Women’s and Gender Studies is co-sponsoring with the Department of History a talk by feminist activist and lawyer Sybille Fritzsche on November 16 at 8:00 p.m. in Helmerich Hall (the Business Administration Hall).
Titled “Forward into the Past: The History of Reproductive Freedom,” the talk will focus on Ms. Fritzsche’s battle to overturn criminal abortion laws in the state of Illinois. Please join us on November 16.
(Distributed by Jan Doolittle Wilson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Tulsa.)
I’d love to meet Fritzsche and hear what she’s got to share.
Peace,
Beamish
October is Sex Ed Month of Action (hehe)
October 22, 2009
Hey, kids! Sex is natural, sex is good! Use condoms! Masturbate! Hooray!
Advocates for Youth provides some helpful links here for young people who’d like to learn about sex and safety.
Tamya Cox at ACLU-OK describes Sex Ed in Oklahoma,
The federal government spent 206 million dollars on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs during 2006. Oklahoma received $690,342 for fiscal year 2005. Yet, as many of us know and the statistics show, not all teenagers are abstaining. In 2005, 48% of Oklahoma female high school students and 50% of male high school students admitted to having sex. These numbers clearly show that our teens are having sex, and now is not the time to turn a blind eye. We must arm our children with the knowledge and tools needed to prevent those who do have sex from unwanted pregnancies as well as contracting Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).
Oklahoma schools are not required to teach sex education but must teach HIV/AIDS prevention. Many school districts who decide to teach sex education do so by teaching an abstinence-only-until-marriage curriculum. This curriculum gives medically inaccurate and biased information about the benefits of abstinence; it gives little or no instruction to those who do have sex about birth control and STD prevention. Young adults under the age of 25 are contracting the HIV virus an alarming rate.
Nationally and locally, we have seen a decline in the number of teen pregnancies, yet Oklahoma still ranks in the top ten. If we are teaching any sex education at all, we are teaching our students to wait until marriage, yet almost half of our students have had sex. So the message on which are spending millions of dollars, is not as effective as it should be. We need to know what our children are learning about sex, and we need to insist that a comprehensive sexuality education curriculum be taught.
Would you like to know more about sex in Oklahoma? Sex, Etc., provides a rundown.
Oh, and this NOT-heteronormative, pro-masturbation, safe-sex promotin’, educational video (audio only) is fabulous. I wish all pre-teens could listen to it. Ladies, “[T]he space between your legs is a LOT more than just a big black hole, although that’s what it can feel like when you’ve been given no information about your reproductive and pleasure organs.” Anatomy lessons, tips for masturbating, ideas for safe heavy petting, explanations and normalizing statements about the different kinds of sex one can have with a partner, erotic zone locations, etc. There’s some goofy M alliteration at the beginning of the podcast, but the talk becomes little more sophisticated as it goes on… until you get to the part where they tell dudes how to be prepared for safe sex… in a drill seargent’s voice… Anyway…
Yay, orgasms! Yay, knowing your body! Yay, marital sex and non-marital sex! The speakers also discuss emotional consequences, STIs, and the problem(s) of teen pregnancy. They promote “hand-sex” or mutual masturbation in particular and describe how to do it effectively; also, they talk about oral sex and anal stimulation with a male or with a female, pointing out that oral sex and sex in general are not “bad” or “good” acts but are normal. The speakers talk about the issue of virginity and how the choice to have sex is YOURS, not your church’s, not your parents’, not your friends’. It’s all about preparation and smart decisions and PLEASURE, suggest the speakers. Last, the speakers talk to people with penises and then people with vulvas about how to be a responsible sexually active person, including how to masturbate with a condom on and how to make a visit to the gyno, respectively. I wish they’d included a little more about the connection of the abortion debate to the sex ed debate, but maybe that would’ve been a bit much for one video. Maybe.
I vaguely remember gaining some basic sex ed (no condom practice or anything like that) in junior high and high school biology classes. I pretty much wasn’t told anything in school, officially–no abstinence-only bullshit but also no safe sex training. Everything I learned, I learned from friends or from pornos. What was your sex ed experience like?
Spread the good news,
Beamish
Alleged Rape of Female Prison Workers at OK Governor’s Mansion
October 13, 2009
(AP) Prosecutors are investigating claims that the former head chef and chief groundskeeper at the Oklahoma governor’s mansion raped three female prison inmates assigned to work on the mansion’s grounds.
Neither man has been charged, but the Department of Central Services fired both of them Sept. 29 for violating departmental policies after a three-month Department of Corrections investigation.
The allegations raise questions about security at the chief executive’s residence and oversight of a program meant in part to reward good inmate behavior by allowing them leave prison for the day and work off-site.
The state Department of Corrections believes the former state workers who supervised the inmates at the governor’s mansion committed sexual battery, forcible sodomy and rape against the Hillside Community Corrections Center inmates, Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie said Monday. The department recently turned its findings over to Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater’s office.
Assistant District Attorney Scott Rowland said Monday that prosecutors met with Department of Corrections investigators for two hours Friday and that the investigation is ongoing.
According to records obtained by The Associated Press through a state open records request, the fired workers are Russell Humphries, the former executive chef at the mansion, and Anthony Bobelu, the former groundskeeper supervisor.
Neither Humphries nor Bobelu has been charged, and neither responded to repeated phone messages seeking comment. No one answered the door Monday at Bobelu’s residence, and Humphries’ current address could not immediately be determined. Neither prosecutors nor Janet Roloff, an Edmond attorney for one of the women, knew if either man had an attorney. …
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Read more at the original source, cbsnews.com.
Don’t read the comments posted after the story unless you want to get really pissed off.
Spread the word. This is news, and this is important for our state to acknowledge. I think of rape as a symptom of a social illness. When it’s reported, when it’s acknowledged/explored/confronted as a crime with a victim and a criminal, only then can we begin to look behind the event at the underlying social structure that supports/perpetuates rape. I know there are people out there who will read this news story and laugh at it and not take it seriously, who will even say that there’s no one out there who’s “pro-rape,” so why give the story attention. “We are all complicit” is my message to everyone who reads. All of us. We are all a part of the problem(s). If one person is not free, we are all enslaved. If one person is sexually abused, we all are.
Yours in interconnectedness and solidarity,
Beamish
Updates on OK HB 1595
October 11, 2009
This bill goes into effect November 1st, 2009, and “requires publication of an ‘Annual Abortion Report’ and forces doctors to give details about their patients under threat of criminal sanctions and loss of their medical license, according to a suit in Oklahoma County Court” (from courthousenews.org). If you’d like to know who voted for and against the bill, take a look here. Feminists for Choice reports that the law is being challenged by Former state Representative Wanda Jo Stapleton, D-Oklahoma City, and Shawnee resident Lora Joyce Davis. Pro-Choice Oklahoma also reported on the bill back in May, as did we here at POP. I am interested in helping Stapleton and Davis in their lawsuit. Anyone else? I’ll keep you all updated about what I find out…
Peace and strength,
beamish
PFC Performing Arts group in Norman, OK
September 20, 2009
Some cool-ass stuff sure does come outta Norman.
The PFC Performing Arts group features some recent acquaintances of mine, and I’d like to share with you what they do.
We are not Private First Class or Peoples Film Channel. I mean it is Pretty Freakin’ Classified and though we have been called a Precambrian Folklore Collection some think we are more like a Positive Frenzied Circasaurus. We decline to comment about what we think of being called Platypus Fried Chicken but I’m sure you can guess such discussion could lead to Parliamentary Fatigue Condition.
PFC street performance troupe has range of tricks and talents including hula hooping, fire dancing, stilt walking, juggling, singing, drumming, unicycling, human sculpture, rope walking, interpretive dance, comedy, clowning and oh so much more.
We have performed in Ghouls Gone Wild, the Norman Mardi Gras Parade, Norman Music Festival and the Second Friday Art Circuit. We are here to entertain and to invite our audience to the possibility of expanding their view of Okie Art.
Our improvisational street performers wear handmade costumes and wield recycled art props.
Forgot how to play or how to have fun? Let PFC remind you!
You can see pictures of their performances and acts on their Facebook page linked above. Viva living art!
Ever yours,
Beamish
Whip It!
July 16, 2009
hey, kids!
i’ve been hearing buzz about this movie on facebook and over at feministing.com! looks fun…
–beamish
