The fanatical assault against Planned Parenthood (PP) in Aurora, Ill. (see Aurora clinic opens!), is the latest in a seemingly endless attacks on women's right to control our own bodies. In fact the reason PP applied for their building permit under a different name was because of experiences like the one in Texas in January of this year, where zealot Chris Danza, using intimidation, forced local contractors working on a PP clinic--one that was not going to be providing abortion services--to pull out of the project. The main contractor could no longer hire local plumbers, carpenters, drywall installers, etc., who had been threatened by Danza: "Any contractor that shows up will get a call from us and about a thousand other people."

ENDLESS RETROGRESSION

One reaction to this endless retrogression has been the attempt by segments of the abortion rights movement to frame the debate differently as if the problem is how the debate on abortion is constructed. The international women's rights group MADRE suggested linking abortion rights "to social and economic rights" and "expand our understanding of 'women's issues,'" to include "international peace and security, indigenous cultural survival." A more recent example is from the Center for American Progress (CFAP), a nonpartisan research and educational institute that presents what they call "a vision for reproductive health and rights that seeks to broaden the current discourse beyond the stagnant abortion debate and that can be integrated into a larger progressive agenda."

There is nothing new in what the CFAP or MADRE are proposing. It is the usual: "the ability to determine whether or when to have children; the ability to have a healthy pregnancy; the ability to have healthy and safe families and relationships," etc. CFAP sees "a unique opportunity to redefine the very terms of the debate over reproductive and sexual rights by re-establishing the context in which decisions about pregnancy are made, connecting support for reproductive rights with broader progressive values...."

But is the problem that those fighting for reproductive justice have to "broaden" or "expand" their discourse? Strangely enough, the fanatical Right does recognize just how broad the question of abortion is, which is why their attack against it is so relentless.

In Aurora, there have been revealing slurs from anti-abortion fanatics: Rev. Dan Hoehn said of the documented demand in the area for reproductive health services: "There is a demand for pornography in Aurora. There is a demand for heroin. Just because a demand exists does not oblige the council." Aurora resident Jeff Budill said of PP: "They are no different than drug dealers that push drugs in our schools. They push sexual pleasure." These complaints are less about abortion than they are about the desire to control women's sexuality; and both conflate sex with drug abuse, as if it is an addiction.

The protest against the clinic in Aurora is spearheaded by Eric Scheidler, son of extremist Joseph Scheidler, head of the Pro-Life Action League, which last year sponsored a conference called "Contraception is Not the Answer." J. Scheidler's twisted thoughts were revealed in his statement that "contraception is more the root cause of abortion than anything." The recent Supreme Court decision that upheld the outlawing of a late-term abortion procedure reveals the notion that women are incapable of making decisions about our own bodies, stating that women who have abortions "regret their choices," and suffer from "severe depression and loss of esteem." In fact almost every barrier that the anti-abortion fanatics have created--parental consent laws, unnecessary waiting periods, mandatory scripts required of doctors that lie about the consequences of abortion, and the escalating attack on contraceptives--reveal the attitude that women are less than human, that their sexuality, especially young women's sexuality, must be controlled by others.

RIGHT'S DESIRE TO CONTROL

Implicit in the Right's struggle to outlaw abortion in all cases, is their desire to control and define what a woman is, or, at the very least, what she should be--including what she should think. If they can command what we do with our own bodies, if they can force a woman to have a child she does not want or carry a fetus to term regardless of the hazard to her health, they are well on their way to carrying out their full agenda of imposing their fundamentalist, anti-human, pro-capitalist agenda. While the struggle for abortion rights may appear as an argument over when life begins, or women's "choice," in actuality it is a struggle about freedom and self-determination. That is the underlying meaning of the intensity of the struggles bringing religious and non-religious together against the Right in Aurora.

It isn't that those fighting for the right to abortion need to "broaden the current discourse," but to articulate just exactly what the right to control our own bodies--which is what abortion rights is about--means. If we can do that, then the implicit revolutionary nature of the struggle will become explicit.

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