Seattle Clinic Defense

DEFEND CHOICE: Fall 40 Days for “Life”...

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 12:55:00 -0400

DEFEND CHOICE: Fall 40 Days for “Life” Counter-Pickets

All counter-pickets will take place at the East Madison Planned Parenthood located at 2001 E. Madison St, Seattle.

Three Dates!

Saturday, Oct 6 10:30am-12pm (RSVP on facebook)

Saturday, Oct 20 10:30am-12pm (RSVP on facebook)

Saturday, Oct 27 10:30am-12pm (RSVP on facebook)

Anti-choice groups are at it again: planning a 40 day campaign to harass women and picket reproductive health clinics in an attempt to “protect life” by imposing their fundamentalist religious views on women making choices for their bodies and their families.

Seattle Clinic Defense stands with women, families, and reproductive health care providers, and is counter-picketing the bigots on three Saturdays during the fall 40 Days for Life pickets. Join us!

Signs and Banners

We’ve got tons of great signs for folks to use but if you have a particularly great zinger or slogan-bring it! We also welcome banners from activist or community groups that support our project. We want to be clear: Seattle is a pro-choice town!

Endorsements Welcome!

If you are part of a community or campus group and would like to endorse these actions or participate on a group level, please email SCD at seattleclinicdefense@gmail.com

We would also greatly appreciate your help in spreading the word to like-minded groups or individuals. Thanks!

9/23 Organizing Meeting

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 18:54:00 -0400

Hi everyone!

It may be 75 degrees but fall is just around the corner. Join us this Sunday as we brainstorm ideas for fall campaigns and discuss how to make SCD bigger, better and stronger!

Sunday, Sept 23

11am-Noon

Elliott Bay Books Cafe, Capitol Hill

RSVP on facebook!

Bring your ideas and we’ll see you there!

Summer Reading Series: Bearing Right

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 22:46:38 -0400

Join Seattle Clinic Defense for our summer study series on William Saletan’s Book, Bearing Right:

In his gripping, behind-the-scenes account, journalist William Saletan reveals exactly how, thirty years after Roe v. Wade, “pro-choice” conservatives have won the abortion war. Having successfully turned abortion into a privacy issue, conservatives now prevail on issues ranging from abortion’s legality and parental notification to Medicaid, rape, and cloning; consequently, reproductive autonomy is now becoming inaccessible to the young and the poor. This eye-opening exposé tells how abortion rights activists—people who desired social change, women’s equality, and broader access to health care—have had their message co-opted in a culture of privacy and limited government. Bearing Right is also a story about the essentially conservative character of the United States today.

We are dividing the book into two sections:
Chapters 1-5
Sunday, August 19
11am-12pm
Elliott Bay Cafe

RSVP on facebook to Part 1

Chapters 6-10
Sunday, September 16
11am-12pm
Elliott Bay Cafe

RSVP on facebook to Part 2

Northgate Clinic Defense

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 22:39:57 -0400

Saturday, Aug 4

9-10:30am

Northgate Planned Parenthood

Meet on the corner of N Northgate Way and Meridan Ave N

RSVP on facebook

Doing what we do best: a summer campaign against right-wind harassment of women accessing health care facilities!

Stand with Jennie Linn McCormack!

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 13:12:33 -0400

Wednesday, July 18
5:30-7:00
Westlake Park

RSVP on facebook

Jennie Linn McCormack is a single mother of 3 living in Pocatello, ID who found herself with an unwanted pregnancy in 2010. Faced with the barriers of only two abortion clinics in Idaho both hours away that according to state law must make clients undergo an “informed consent” appointment at least 24 hours before a procedure, a “fetal pain” law with no scientific base that won’t allow abortions in Idaho past 19 weeks, and a budget of only $250 per month in child support, Jennie terminated her pregnancy at home with an abortion pill purchased on the internet from an out of state doctor. After confiding in a friend, this individual told someone who then called the police. Jennie was arrested and charged with a felony under a pre-Roe v. Wade law that states only a doctor can perform an abortion. The charges were dropped due to lack of evidence. As word of her arrest spread through her small and deeply conservative community, Jennie Linn now faces isolation, shaming, discrimination and lack of support.

Jennie Linn was faced with a deeply personal choice that she is now taking public for the sake of us all. We won’t go back, and we won’t let her go through this alone.

Join us as we rally to show support for and raise awareness about Jennie’s case! There will also be an opportunity to write letters of support directly to Jennie.

If you are unable to attend this event, here are some ways you can contribute:
Contribute to her Legal Defense Fund: Send checks made out to the law office (Racine Olson Nye Budge & Bailey) and be sure to NOTE THAT IT’S FOR JENNIE’S LEGAL DEFENSE FUND.
Send to: Attn: Richard Hearn, Attorney
Racine Olson Nye Budge & Bailey
201 East Center Street
P. O. Box 1391
Pocatello, ID 83201

Send money directly to Jennie to help her cover living expenses, childcare costs, and relocation. Make the check out directly to her, and address it to Jennie Linn McCormack, c/o Richard Hearn, at the legal office above.

Even just a note of support helps! Again, send to Jennie Linn c/o Richard Hearn, at the legal office above.

Countering anti-choice lies

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:32:48 -0400

Seattle Clinic Defense organizer Michelle Farber reports on a recent protest against an anti-choice speaker at the University of Washington.

SOME 75 pro-choice protesters picketed a lecture on May 3 at the University of Washington (UW) titled, “Do women have too many rights?”

The speaker, Abby Johnson, is a former Planned Parenthood clinic director who now speaks against women’s right to abortion. According to her website, Johnson has “always had a fierce determination to help women in need,” which is what led her to work at Planned Parenthood—and then leave, following a transformational “pro-life” experience after allegedly witnessing an abortion.

Her platform is a mix of co-opted feminist language regarding “choice” and non-scientific nonsense pieced together from Fox News and Live Action talking points.

Seattle Clinic Defense, a grassroots group dedicated to shame-free, medically accurate reproductive health care, and the Gender Equality Caucus of Occupy Seattle, organized a picket of the event. Seattle Clinic Defense’s actions, to date, have involved counter-picketing anti-choice demonstrators who harass women seeking reproductive health care at Planned Parenthood clinics across the Puget Sound area.

We stepped outside of that model for this action to challenge what we see as the modus operandi of the new anti-choice movement: showcasing young, female activists who portray their driving force as deep compassion for babies and women’s choices, so long as those choices only include parenting or adoption.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THE EVENING started with UW student activists and pro-choice groups gathering to make signs and put stickers on coat hangers that said, “We won’t go back!” Protesters began a circular picket and chanted slogans such as “Keep your rosaries off our ovaries,” “Not the church, not the state, women must decide their fate,” and “Back alleys no more, abortion rights for rich and poor.”

After the picket, we moved inside to line the doorways to the event while holding our protest signs. We were met with hostile UW police, who demanded that we put away the coat hangers. As sharp objects, they were supposedly dangerous. That was the point: coat hangers are one of the many common items women have used to unsafely terminate unwanted pregnancies.

It was extremely satisfying to see a look of unease on many as anti-choice faces as they had to face our gauntlet to enter the event. It mirrored one of our most recent counter-pickets in Everett, Wash., in which about 30 anti-choice demonstrators lined the sidewalk on both sides leading to a Planned Parenthood.

We were sending a powerful message to the anti-choice members of the crowd: you are not safe from criticism here. Your tactics are unacceptable. See how uncomfortable it makes you to walk past us? And you’re just going to a lecture!

Inside, ushers handed out note cards for the “question-and-answer session,” making it obvious that only pre-selected, friendly questions would be fielded. The pro-choice audience heckled and shouted corrections to false scientific and historical statements, demanded citations, and booed and hissed appropriately.

For example, one of Johnson’s favorite talking points is that Planned Parenthood is a part of the abortion “industry,” and thus needs to meet a certain quota of abortions. Even more egregious is that Johnson asserts the cornerstone of anti-scientific rhetoric by claiming a fetus, at 13 weeks can not only feel pain, but attempt to “escape” the cannula used to evacuate the fetus from the uterus.

As we challenged the bald-faced, nearly comical lies and rhetoric that emanated from the stage, the anti-choice students asked us all to “be respectful” and “let Abby say her piece.” While some of us agree that the yelling got a little out of hand, the idea that folks should sit quietly with their hands folded and respect the speaker simply because she is speaking is fundamentally flawed.

Not only is what she says untrue, it’s downright offensive to women and health care providers. For too long, mainstream feminist organizations have ceded political space to hate groups that front speakers like Johnson. Free speech does not entitle one to escape challenge, especially when the material that is presented is non-scientific and laced with woman-hating, slut-shaming rhetoric.

Many people who are pro-choice believe that by counter-picketing the anti-choicers at clinics, we encourage higher attendance on their side—therefore, we should just ignore them. But they have created political space in front of a health care facility, and we’ll be damned if they go unchallenged.

The same logic holds true for an event that is titled, “Do women have too many rights?” Abby Johnson is a dangerous pawn in the new strategy of the war on women. In the 1990s, anti-choice groups tried violence; now they kill us with kindness, and the liberal feminist response has been to let them.

The religious extremists have the same end goal; they’re just adapted to a new strategy. We must also adapt and make sure that anti-choice groups and pro-choice sympathizers understand that when they use such language and tactics, it is not the exercise of free speech; the anti-woman minority has created political space in which hate speech can, and must, be challenged.

Originally published at Socialist Worker.

Thursday! Raise your voice for choice!

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:15:00 -0400

This Thursday! May 3

6:45-8:00 pm

Kane Hall 130, UW campus (map)

RSVP on facebook

Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director turned “pro-life” activist will be speaking at the University of Washington. The title of her talk, “Do Women Have Too Many Rights?” is vile enough by itself to warrant a protest. Worse still though, the talk is being advertised as “the story of a woman who has been on both sides, understands both sides, and even respects both sides, but who has come down squarely on one side of this controversial issue.”

In reality, Abby Johnson will likely be speaking against Planned Parenthood, access to abortion and other reproductive health services that millions of people utilize every year. Her anti-choice, anti-women, anti-science position MUST be challenged.

Occupy Gender Equality Caucus, in partnership with Seattle Clinic Defense, is calling for action! Come raise your voice for choice on May 3rd. There will be a picket line and speakout.

Planned Parenthood is on Tumblr!

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 05:17:08 -0400

plannedparenthood:

Planned Parenthood is excited to be launching our new Tumblr that’s all about sexual and reproductive health – bodies, birth control, relationship issues, “is it normal for this to do this?” type things. In the coming weeks and months we’ll be sharing what we know, answering questions, and just… tumblring.

We hope you like it! And we hope it helps.

Yeah, my mom "Chose Life"

Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:53:06 -0400

spiralofbees:

Because she had a choice.

Otherwise it would be “Smile! Our laws forced your mom to stay pregnant!”

Planned Parenthood Clinic Bombed in Wisconsin

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:05:54 -0400

A small bomb exploded at Planned Parenthood’s Appleton North Health Center in Wisconsin, according to numerous news reports. The Green Bay Press Gazette reports that a “small, homemade explosive device” was placed on a windowsill of the clinic at around 7:30 p.m. Sunday night, causing damage as well as small fire.

More coverage at RH Reality Check….

Check out this awesome video from our clinic defense last...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:59:22 -0400

Check out this awesome video from our clinic defense last weekend. Thanks to Elliot Stoller for making it!

(The top photos are awesome representatives of Seattle Clinic...

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 22:55:00 -0400

The gauntlet of anti-choicers.

"The Pill Kills". Seriously?!?!

(The top photos are awesome representatives of Seattle Clinic Defense; the bottom photos are the crazy anti-choicers that we faced that day. ”The Pill Kills”, gotta love people who completely ignore anything related to science or fact.)

Last Saturday we faced at least 40 anti-choice people at our second defense of the Everett Planned Parenthood during 40 Days of Life (read: Lies). The anti-choicers were out in appalling force, lining both sides of the sidewalk in front of the clinic, creating a gauntlet of harassment.

Thankfully, we had about 20 pro-choice allies representing Seattle Clinic Defense. With our signs supporting Planned Parenthood and reproductive rights, we shouted over their prayers that women “see the light about abortion” and challenged them on their beliefs.

It was a tough day, but we kicked butt, and our presence was extra important given the huge number of anti-choicers there. As one of our affiliates best described, not only do we defend the clinics with our presence, but when we are there, the anti-choicers bully and harass us instead of the patients trying to access the clinic. No better work.

One of the staff members of the clinic came out while we were there to thank us for our presence, and we had a great number of honks from passing cars and drivers thanking us for being there.

Thankfully, 40 Day for Life/Lies is almost over. As you can see from the photos above, we need even more of a pro-choice presence at this clinic than we have - so come out and help us with our last clinic defense during 40 Days! Next Saturday, March 31st, noon-1:30pm, at the Everett Planned Parenthood, 1509 32nd St, Everett WA. Facebook event here. Bring your friends!

This Saturday!

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:16:05 -0400

Round two of our Three Days for Choice Spring campaign kicks off at the Everett Planned Parenthood!

We’ll be there with our signs, supporting the clinic staff and patients.

Love to have you join us! RSVP on facebook here.

Need a ride? Email us at seattleclinicdefense@gmail.com and we’ll get you in a carpool!

Three Days for Choice Spring Campaign!

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 13:47:51 -0400

During Lent anti-choice groups around the country gather in front of clinics to harass and intimidate patients seeking reproductive health care.

Join Seattle Clinic Defense in taking back our clinics and showing our support for reproductive health care providers and facilities. During our Three Days for Choice Campaign we will be traveling to Everett WA to defend a Planned Parenthood Clinic there.

This is a multi-day campaign to counter-picket the antis. Join us on:
~~February 25~~ Pictures here!

March 17 RSVP on facebook!

March 31 RSVP on facebook!

We will be arranging some carpools to Everett and may be able to offer transportation. Please contact us at seattleclinicdefense@gmail.com to learn more!

Countering 40 Days of Life/Lies - 02/25/12 Everett Clinic...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:34:00 -0500

Countering 40 Days of Life/Lies - 02/25/12 Everett Clinic Defense

Hello, devoted followers! There’s been a hiatus on the blog, but we are back and up to great things! This past Saturday we had our first defense countering the six weeks of bullying and clinic harassment otherwise known as 40 Days for Life (we think “Lies” is much more appropriate). ”But wait”, you say, “didn’t 40 Days for Life/Lies happen last Fall?”. You are correct! Unfortunately, the anti-choicers put it on TWICE a year. So we’re out in full force countering them twice a year.

Surprisingly (and thankfully!), this Spring, there is no 40 Days for Life presence at either of the Seattle Planned Parenthood Clinics. The anti-choicers are in full force up in Everett, though, so we have brought our defenses up to there. We had a fantastic defense this past Saturday, complete with over 20 supporters and many excellent new signs.

The clinic staff reported that the anti-choicers had been harassing patients that morning and every day since 40 Days for Life/Lies started on Wednesday 02/22. The staff thanked us for our presence, as did some local residents who reported being tired of seeing the anti-choicers there every day.

We have two more defenses scheduled during 40 Days for Life, both at the Everett clinic (1509 32nd St.) - on Saturday, 3/17 and Saturday, 3/31, both from noon-1:30pm. Come out and help us stand up for shame-free, medically-accurate health care!

Additionally, SCD is celebrating its first birthday this month! Come and join us at the Red Velvet Lounge at the Rendezvous on Saturday, 3/9 at 7pm and help celebrate! Friends, plus ones, allies, lovers, and supporters welcome. The Facebook event is here.

December 10th Clinic Defense Wrap-up Seattle’s clinic...

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:30:00 -0500

December 10th Clinic Defense Wrap-up

Seattle’s clinic defenders got up bright and early on Saturday, 12/10 to counter the regular second-Saturday anti-choice protest at the Capitol Hill Planned Parenthood. (organized by this organization: http://www.seattlehelpers.org/) We were glad to find that anti-choicers did not show their faces at the clinic that morning! Likely due to the cold weather or because they knew that we were going to be there. We still showed our support for the clinic for a short period of time and received thanks from clinic staff and many people passing on the sidewalk. Always a good day when there aren’t anti-choice people harassing and intimidating clinic staff and patients!

We will be expanding our activities after the new year, including more actively spreading the word about the so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” that lie to women about abortion and bully them against choosing to exercise their right to terminate a pregnancy. Come to our organizational meeting on Saturday, Dec. 17th at 1pm at Bauhaus Coffee (301 E Pine, at Melrose)!

Organizing Meeting

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:24:00 -0500

SAT, Dec 17

1PM

Bauhaus Coffee (301 E Pine, at Melrose)

RSVP on facebook

It’s been a great year and we’re looking forward to an active and exciting 2012!

We’ll be discussing plans for the new year. Ideas include:
-teach-in on reproductive rights and abortion rights in early to mid-January
-a march for reproductive rights on Jan 22 co-sponsored by the Occupy Seattle Gender Equality Caucus
-educational forum on Crisis Pregnancy Centers
-SlutWalk Seattle 2012

Bring your ideas!

Occupy and women's rights

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:52:00 -0500

Seattle Clinic Defense member Leela Yellesetty explains why the Occupy movement must embrace women’s rights.

WOMEN ARE a majority of the 99 percent.

We are still paid, on average, only 77 cents to a man’s dollar (that number drops to 68 cents for African American women and 58 cents for Latinas). When one takes into account the impact of childbearing and the fact the women still bear the brunt of unpaid labor in the home, this figure slides further downwards. One study measuring the cumulative impact over 15 prime-earning years found that women actually make 38 cents for each dollar a man makes.

This should come as no surprise living in one of the only countries in the world—along with Swaziland and Papua New Guinea—which does not require employers to provide paid maternity leave.

Women are disproportionately impacted by the budget cuts that are shredding the social safety net. Nationally, about two-thirds of adult recipients of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program are women. Women and people of color are also overrepresented in public-sector jobs, and therefore are particularly vulnerable to the onslaught of layoffs and pay cuts these budget cuts entail. According to the U.S. Labor Department, women lost 72 percent of 378,000 government posts cut between July 2009 and March 2010.

In my home state of Washington, women constitute 54 percent of individuals enrolled in the government’s Medicare health care program. The governor’s latest budget proposal includes $2 million in cuts to maternal and child health and $1.8 million to family planning—in addition to the complete elimination of the Basic Health Program, which provides coverage to the state’s poorest residents—again, disproportionately women.

Meanwhile, the 1 percent here in Washington state continues to reap the benefits of generous tax loopholes and the most unfair tax structure in the country. We are home to four of the 23 richest people in the country: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen. There seems to be a gender imbalance on that end as well.

FOR ALL of these reasons and more, it is no surprise that large numbers of women are involved in, and leading, the Occupy movement both locally and nationally.

Yet this movement is not immune to the sexism that is pervasive in society as a whole. A case in point was the sexist “Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street” video I wrote about a few months back (“No place for sexism in Occupy”). There have also been reports of sexual harassment and assault at occupations. More generally, despite the many incredible examples of female leadership, the most vocal and visible leadership in Seattle, and I suspect elsewhere, continues to be disproportionately white and male.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that as the Occupy movement has evolved, a debate has arisen around the question of gender equality and how it relates to the interests of the 99 percent.

The issue came to a head in Seattle around the question of reproductive rights. I am a part of the group Seattle Clinic Defense, which was founded earlier this year to defend clinics against the anti-choice bigots who regularly picket them.

We decided to put our recent action, a counter-picket to the “40 days for life” (in reality, 40 days of harassment) campaign by anti-choice activists, on the Occupy Seattle online events calendar. The calendar is open for any community groups to list their events—socialist groups, for instance, have posted a number of teach-ins and meetings, which have generated no controversy, even though not everyone in the movement considers themselves a socialist.

However, we quickly learned that when it came to reproductive rights, the same rules did not apply. The listing of the clinic defense action on the calendar almost immediately provoked a massive debate on the Occupy Seattle Facebook page. The main instigator was an out-and-out bigot, who clearly believed fetuses were a more important part of the 99 percent than living, breathing women.

But I think what most dismayed myself and other anti-sexist activists was the number of people who told us that while they personally supported us, they didn’t really think these “divisive” side issues should be brought into the Occupy movement, which should be focused exclusively on corporate greed and the issues that unite the 99 percent.

I was thankful to find that I was not the only person who found this argument to be problematic, to say the least. As one commenter put it:

Reproductive rights are central to the economic equality of women. It’s not a vague relationship—it’s absolutely core to the ability of women to work, to plan, to control their lives. The assault on the availability of birth control, yearly exams, and yes, abortion, is a direct assault on poor women who rely on the free services Planned Parenthood provides. This is not a periphery issue to Occupy—unless women are periphery to Occupy. Banks are not the whole story, and it would be a huge mistake to allow yourself to be fooled into thinking they are.

I think she absolutely hits the nail on the head. Despite the increasing barriers thrown up to abortion access, from waiting periods and counseling to denying coverage under private insurance—over 80 such laws were passed this year, more than double the previous record—women continue to seek out abortions. One in three women will have one in their lifetime—hardly a rare occurrence.

According to a recent report by the Guttmacher Institute, demand is increasing disproportionately among poor women in the wake of the economic crisis. This should come as no surprise when the average cost of raising a child to age 18 (not including college) is estimated at $226,920, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This statistic alone should make it crystal clear why the right to decide whether and when to have children is a fundamental precondition to women’s equality in society. As a recent United Nations report stated unequivocally: “Criminal laws penalizing and restricting induced abortion are the paradigmatic examples of impermissible barriers to the realization of women’s right to health and must be eliminated. These laws infringe women’s dignity and autonomy by severely restricting decision-making by women in respect of their sexual and reproductive health.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

THIS ARGUMENT may not be won within the Occupy movement overnight. The tenor of the debate and the defensiveness of even many of the pro-choice activists in the movement is testament to how much ground the right has gained on the issue of abortion in recent decades.

In this sense, it is absolutely true that abortion has become a divisive issue—and the 1 percent likes nothing better than to keep us divided. Abortion and other so-called “wedge issues” have been a key part of their strategy for keeping us fighting each other rather than them. But the only way to build true unity of the 99 percent is on the basis of championing the rights of the oppressed, not by ignoring them.

We want to convince men in the movement that upholding sexism is to their own detriment—because it is. Who benefits from the fact that the vast majority of the costs of nurturing and raising the next generation of workers falls on individual families? Answer: the 1 percent, who save on having to pay their workers child care or maternity leave, or taxes for public programs to provide these services.

As Joan Williams vividly illustrates this in her book Reshaping the Work-Family Debate:

Many Americans in nonprofessional jobs have crazy quilts of child care, with sometimes as many as five different child care arrangements—one for each day of the week. Or else they “tag team,” where mom works one shift while dad works a different shift, with each parent caring for the kids while the other is at work. This is not an easy way to live: everyone ends up exhausted, and many parents rarely see each other awake. Moreover, if one parent is ordered to work mandatory overtime, the family has to choose between mom’s job and dad’s job, in a situation where they need both jobs to survive.

The 1 percent also benefits from wage inequality between men and women. This dynamic is illustrated clearly when you look at the wage trends since the 1970s. While the ratio between men’s and women’s wages has narrowed over this time period, this has been due primarily to men’s wages falling, not to women’s wages rising. In other words, the entry of a lower-paid female labor force has actually driven down wages for men as well—again, all for the benefit of the 1 percent.

So there is a strong case to be made that gender inequality is integral to overall economic inequality, and that fight against one can’t be separated from the other. As a socialist, this is something I have been arguing this for years, but the exciting thing is this is no longer an abstract argument. We are actually on the ground making this happen.

The upshot of this debate was that a handful of people from Occupy Seattle came out to our clinic defense event, one of whom wanted to organize to raise awareness of these issues within Occupy Seattle. So the very next day, myself and other Seattle Clinic Defense members attended the founding meeting of the Gender Equality Caucus.

Our first step has been organizing teach-ins to educate people in the movement about why we need to connect the dots between gender equality and socioeconomic justice. We also recently mobilized to occupy the state Capitol in opposition to the latest round of budget cuts, and are speaking out to save the Seattle Central Community College Childcare Center, which is slated to be closed next week.

Starting in early January, we plan to hold teach-ins around the issue of reproductive justice, leading up to a big march on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade on January 22. This marks an important opportunity to unite the Occupy movement with the hundreds of young activists who turned out for the Walk for Choice and Slutwalk here last spring.

As our experience in Seattle shows, there is a need to challenge sexism among those who consider themselves part of the Occupy movement and to argue with fellow activists about why the movement should embrace the fight for gender equality. These arguments are worth it, as they create the basis for a stronger movement—one that sees the struggle against oppression as central to the liberation of the 99 percent.

Originally published at Socialist Worker.

Our final clinic defense during the fall 40 days for life...

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 20:36:37 -0500

Our final clinic defense during the fall 40 days for life campaign was a complete success! There were thankfully only a small number of anti-choice people praying when we got to the clinic, and they all left while we were there! It was wonderful to know that we had helped free up the clinic from the anti-choice harassers for the day (or at least for the morning!). The sunlight and beautiful fall colors made it an ever better morning.

Thanks to everyone who came out and has supported us during our countering of the 40 days for life campaign! We’ve had some great defenses, and will continue to build and support reproductive rights.

Final Clinic Defense during 40 Days for Life! Sat., 11/5, 10am, Cap. Hill. PP

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:46:00 -0400

Our final clinic defense during 40 Days for Life is this Saturday (at the E. Madison St. Planned Parenthood in Capitol Hill). It is the last Saturday in that unpleasant campaign, so the anti-choicers will be out in full force - so we need to be there too!

Please note - the time of this defense has changed, and is from 10am-noon. This is to allow activists who so desire to take part both in our defense and in Occupy Seattle events, and will hopefully help us get a good show at the defense.

We’ve had good past defenses during 40 DFL, but we need to make this one awesome - and we need you there for that! Be there, and bring your friends. There are a lot of anti-choicers out there during the campaign, but with your help, we can show them and the public that there is more support for reproductive freedom than there is for forcing decisions on other people and restricting rights.

We need you to be there! Help us make this defense great!

RSVP to the Facebook event here.