My Heart is Breaking, My Fem-fist is Held High!

I cannot believe the latest anti- choice attacks on the women in Kansas. They are closing the abortion clinics that are not up to par due to some stupid bill taking effect. Ever since the Roe v. Wade ruling the anti-choice community has been stopping at nothing to make sure women cannot access abortion services. It is very disturbing and heart-wrenching to think that women, who have chosen to exercise their right to not parent, are being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. Regardless to any circumstances regarding a woman's choice to have an abortion, it it still her choice to make. Where is this world headed? We must stand firmly together to protect a woman's right to choose abortion as a birth control option without any barriers or shame from anyone!

Why women are better at everything? Reply

It just makes me ecstatic that somebody finally realizes this and addresses the reason why women are constantly faced with problem of being oppressed and torn down. People who feel bad about themselves and what they lack have to tear others down to build themselves up.So just the fact that we have the strength to be good at all these things and surpass the obstacles that some people can't [is amazing.] We will always have to fight the good fight.

Why Women Are Better at Everything

This article isn't particularly about reproductive rights but I thought it would be an interesting and informative article for any woman.

Recently in the Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch columnist David Weidner noted that women "do almost everything better" than men — from politics to corporate management to investing.

Weidner cites a new study by Barclays Wealth and Ledbury Research, which found that women were more likely than men to make money in the market, mostly because they didn't take as many risks. And why are they risk-averse? Because they're not as overconfident as men, the study found.

The study's findings backed up those of previous research on the topic: in a 2001 study [PDF] of 35,000 American households with an account at a discount brokerage, financial scholars Brad Barber and Terrance Odean found that women's risk-adjusted returns beat men's by 1% annually. A 2005 study by Merrill Lynch found that 35% of women held an investment too long, compared with 47% of men. More recently, in 2009, a study by the mutual fund company Vanguard involving 2.7 million personal investors concluded that during the recent financial crisis, men were more likely than women to sell shares of stocks at all-time lows, leading to bigger losses among male traders. It also meant fewer gains when some of the stock values began to rise again.

LIST: The State of the American Woman

What's the problem with men? "There's been a lot of academic research suggesting that men think they know what they're doing, even when they really don't know what they're doing," John Ameriks, the author of the Vanguard study, told the New York Times.

The reason for that overconfidence may come down to biology, research suggests. There's a growing field of study called "neuroeconomics," in which scientists are examining the link between hormonal and neurological impulses and financial decision-making. One such recent study by John Coates, a research fellow in neuroscience and finance at Cambridge University, tested male traders' hormone responses to workplace decisions. He found that testosterone — the stuff that makes men, well, men — surges during winning streaks. And that may drive both risk-taking and an attitude of infallibility.

The so-called "winner effect," which has been seen in athletes during competition, also seems to apply to male traders. As the U.K.'s Guardian explained:

This occurs when two males enter a competition and their testosterone levels rise, increasing their muscle mass and the ability of the blood to carry oxygen. It also enhances their appetite for risk. Much of this testosterone stays in the system of the winner of a competition, while the loser's testosterone melts away fast; in evolutionary terms, the loser retires to the woods to lick his wounds. In the next round of competition, though, the winner already has high levels of testosterone, so he starts with an advantage, and this continues to reinforce itself.

"Steroids," Coates explains, "like most chemicals in your body, display what is called an inverted U-shaped response curve." That is to say, when you have low levels of them you lack vitality, and do very poorly at mental and physical tasks. But as the levels rise you get sharper and more focused until you reach an optimum. The key thing is this, however: "If you keep winning, your testosterone level goes past that peak and sliding down the other side. You start doing stupid things. When that happens to animals, they go out in the open too much. They pick too many fights. They neglect parenting duties. And they patrol areas that are too large." In short, they behave like traders on a roll; they get cocky.

Women, who have only 10% of the testosterone that men have, seem inured to the phenomenon, according to Coates. He is currently studying the small group of women who make their living on the trading floors of New York City — but because there are so few of them, he hasn't amassed enough data to make any conclusions about the way their hormones and chemistry may affect behavior.

VIDEO: Women Then & Now: The Welder Janie Cottrell

"We know that opinion diversity is crucial to stable markets," Coates told the Guardian. "What no one talks about is endocrine diversity, a diversity of hormones." It's an unorthodox concept, but Coates believes it's worth investigating.

So, basically, the more women around, the better, as the Journal's Wiedner said. His column referred to a recent book by Dan Abrams called Man Down: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else. Wiedner wrote:

As Abrams notes, women are better soldiers because they complain about pain less. They're less likely to be hit by lightning because they're not stupid enough to stand outside in a storm. They remember words and faces better. They're better spies because they're better at getting people to talk candidly.

Of course, to most women none of this is much of a revelation.

Find this article at:
http://healthland.time.com/2011/06/28/why-women-are-better-at-everything/

In SD, abortion counseling meant to discourage

CHET BROKAW | June 26, 2011 03:20 PM EST |

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SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The small sign outside the Alpha Center in Sioux Falls quietly announces a roster of available services: "Free pregnancy tests, abortion information, STD testing."

Inside the brick building, women can get a free ultrasound and hear about birth programs. But if you're a woman looking for help finding a legal abortion, you've come to the wrong place. Nowhere within this crisis pregnancy center will a visitor find help getting an abortion, in part because a new restrictive state law would such referrals illegal.

The center that says its goal is to counsel and educate pregnant women is one of three statewide that have signed up so far to be a required stop for those seeking an abortion if South Dakota's new abortion law survives legal challenges.

The state's new law requires women seeking abortions to first participate in one free counseling session at a pregnancy help center, defined as an organization that does not offer abortion referrals but works "to educate, counsel and otherwise assist women (to keep) their relationship with their unborn children." The centers would determine whether a woman is being pressured to have an abortion, and provide information to help her give birth and keep a child.

The law also establishes the nation's longest waiting period at three days by prohibiting an abortion from being performed until 72 hours after a woman meets with an abortion clinic doctor. The doctor ultimately would determine whether she is being coerced.

Supporters say the law was necessary because many women are pressured to seek abortions by husbands, boyfriends or relatives. Alpha Center founder Leslee Unruh said about half the women who visit her facility face such pressure.

But abortion rights supporters say no other state has such stringent counseling requirements and the law encourages coercion against abortion and amounts to yet another obstacle to obtaining a legal abortion.

"Of course, we feel giving her child life is a better experience than having an abortion," said Unruh, who had an abortion for medical reasons more than three decades ago but since founding the Alpha Center in 1984 has become one of South Dakota's leading anti-abortion campaigners.

Abortion-rights supporters filed a federal lawsuit in late May to block the new law from taking effect July 1, claiming it interferes with the legal right to abortion established in the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. A hearing is scheduled Monday in Sioux Falls on a request to suspend the law while it's being challenged.

Care Net Pregnancy Resource Center, located about 400 miles west in Rapid City, and Bella Pregnancy Resource Center in Spearfish, are the state's only other registered facilities, though state officials expect more will sign up after the law takes effect. All three pregnancy centers are private, nonprofit organizations. Unruh said Alpha Center is reliant on private donations and, according to federal tax records, was armed in recent years with an annual budget ranging between $700,000 and $1 million.

Critics say the new law will force mostly low-income women to make long, costly journeys to receive required counseling. Advocates say that's folly because the Sioux Falls and Rapid City centers are located in the state's two most populated cities.

Unruh says she's ready to take her center's services on the road if necessary, armed with Alpha Center's "Fleet for Little Feet" – a motor home that's been converted into a mobile medical and counseling operation.

Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-health research organization that supports abortion rights, said the law "really makes a mockery of informed consent."

Women who get counseling under the law will only be getting part of the story, said Nash, a public policy associate.

"It'll all be designed to steer her in one direction, which is to continue her pregnancy," Nash said.

Alpha Center is South Dakota's best-known crisis pregnancy center, mostly because of Unruh, who said she changed her position on the issue after her young son picked up a doll showing a three-month-old fetus at a Right to Life booth and said, "baby." Since then, she has taken prominent roles in every recent attempt to ban or restrict abortion in South Dakota.

Unruh said Alpha Center counselors don't pressure women to avoid abortion. She said they simply give women information about fetal development, offer an ultrasound and provide information about medical, financial and other services that can help them keep their babies or give them up for adoption,.

"It's not like we as counselors are saying: `She still wants an abortion so now I have to talk her out of it.' It's really her decision," Unruh said.

Kathi Di Nicola of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, which operates South Dakota's only abortion clinic in Sioux Falls, disagrees with Unruh.

"The stated mission of a crisis pregnancy center is to dissuade a woman from seeking abortion care," Di Nicola said.

The new law provides little detailed guidance on how counseling sessions would be conducted. The Alpha Center declined a request by The Associated Press to interview counselors or see guidelines for counseling sessions, citing its intention to join the legal defense of the counseling law.

But during a facility tour, Unruh described staff procedures. In a room where ultrasounds are done, posters around the examination table show paintings of fetuses and describe what a fetus can do at various stages of development.

Unruh said a counseling session mostly deals with finding solutions to problems faced by pregnant women. A counselor can refer women to services that help them find or keep jobs, get back into school or get free medical care, she said. Women also can talk to others who've had abortions.

A woman who chooses to give birth can visit the center's Baby Closet to get diapers, baby clothing and other items – a privilege earned by going to school, getting a job, performing community service or meeting other goals.

Alpha Center's website leaves little doubt about its mission: prevent abortions and help women give birth.

A fund-raising page tells about a woman identified only as Kari who visited Alpha Center after she had scheduled an appointment to get an abortion at the Planned Parenthood clinic.

"Every day, because of your support, we have the privilege of not only helping to save God's precious little babies, but to save their mothers as well," according to the fundraising pitch signed by Unruh.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20110626/us-south-dakota-abortion/

The anti-choice billboards on 58th and State St are down! Yes, we are powerful and yes, we will continue to stand against injustices everywhere! We will not rest until all of them are down nationwide!

OMG!!!! When Will the Madness Cease......"Susan B. Anthony's List Pro-Life Presidential Pledge"

So once again women's bodies and choices are being attacked. The "pro- life presidential pledge" is absurd and its entire purpose is to strip us of our reproductive and human rights! Let's make a pledge that ensures women resources to decrease unwanted pregnancies or a pledge that finally 100% upholds our right to choose when/if we want to parent. Most importantly, let's make a pledge to stomp our feet on the necks of the boneheads who constantly try to take away our right to CHOOSE! Maybe not literally......OK... I did mean literally.....

Romney and Cain Opt Out of Signing Anti-Abortion Pledge - ABC News

By OLIVIA KATRANDJIAN

June 18, 2011

Republican presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have announced that they won't sign the Susan B. Anthony's List Pro-Life Presidential Pledge, which five other Republican contenders --Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty and Rick Santorum -- agreed to sign.

Romney announced his decision in an oped today on the National Review's website. He called the pledge "overly broad" and said signing it could have "unintended consequences."

"It is one thing to end federal funding for an organization like Planned Parenthood; it is entirely another to end all federal funding for thousands of hospitals across America," Romney wrote. "That is precisely what the pledge would demand and require of a president who signed it."

Cain issued a statement today on why he choose not sign the pledge. While he said he "adamantly" supports the first three parts of the pledge -- appointing pro-life judges and selecting pro-life appointees to his cabinet and the executive branch as well ending taxpayer funding for abortions -- he has a problem with the last part of the pledge, which demands the signee "[advances]" the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

"As president, I would sign it, but Congress must advance the legislation," Cain wrote. "I have been a consistent and unwavering champion of pro-life issues. In no way does this singular instance of clarification denote an abandonment of the pro-life movement, but instead, is a testament to my respect for the balance of power and the role of the presidency."

Romney also said he is pro-life, but he didn't always feel that way, a fact Rick Santorum has pointed out on several occasions. In 1994, when running for the Senate against Ted Kennedy, he said, "I believe abortion should be safe and legal in this country." In 2002, during his bid for the Massachusetts governorship, Romney vowed to "preserve and protect a woman's right to choose."

"[Romney] obviously still has to be concerned with presenting himself as a conservative," ABC News political director Amy Walter said. "He has had a track record on abortion that does upset some voters. Some conservatives were not convinced of his conservativism on the issue, but it would do him little good for him to look dogmatic on an issue that he has already had a change of heart on."

How much will this decision affect Romney and Cain's presidential campaigns?

"The broader question is, what role will social issues play this year when the economy is front and center?" Walter said. "This might have been a bigger problem for some of these candidates in a different year, but I don't know that it will have the same impact this year.

"This is hypothetical right now, not reality," Walter added. "We know the reality of how the system works -- you can pledge to do a lot of things as president."

Susan B. Anthony List's Presidential Pledge:

One, only nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court and federal bench judges who are committed to restraint and applying the original meaning of the Constitution, not legislating from the bench;

Two, select pro-life appointees for relevant Cabinet and Executive Branch positions, in particular the head of National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health & Human Services, and the Department of Justice;

Three, advance pro-life legislation to permanently end all taxpayer funding of abortion in all domestic and international spending programs, and defund Planned Parenthood and all other contractors and recipients of federal funds with affiliates that perform or fund abortions; and

Four, advance and sign into law a Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to protect unborn children who are capable of feeling pain from abortion.

ABC News' Emily Friedman and Katie Slaman contributed to this report.

Im Enraged!!

So apparently targeting Black women wasn't enough. Now the anti-choice folks are targeting Latina women! This has got to stop. I refuse to believe that we will sit and allow the anti-choice party to start a war against women of color. Although the billboards have not been placed in Chicago, who is to say that it won't. Which means that we need to do whatever it takes to prevent it from happening. They embarrassed, shamed, and ridiculed us already for our decisions to have an abortion. I refuse to let it happen to our sisters in the Latina communities. You definitely have our voices behind you. Much love

The billboards are now targeting Latina Women

Colorado Protest

I'm out here for fund abortion conference and during one of the workshops a lady announces there are anti-choice protesters around and she could hear them this morning when she opened her window so we should go over there being the powerful group of women we are that's willing to make change and not stand for ignorance being spread.So I say why not be daring, I must take this walk.As I walk around this clinic, I see these anti-choice idiots like never before.I see baby dolls in strollers with signs posted saying "keep your baby".I see a guy in a nurses outfit with what is suppose to be blood on it and a baby doll hanging on a stick with a rope around the neck. I'm thinking to myself this is outrageous and it just empowers me to keep doing the work that I do,even though what they are trying to do is to try to take my power away and it just gases me up more to keep speaking out, doing outreach, telling my story, calling my alderman, devoting my time and voice to not only my choice, but my daughters choice ,my sisters choice,my friend's choice and EVERY WOMANS'CHOICE.Then its always an old white guy who cant carry a pregnancy right on the forefront trying to tell a woman what to do with her body.Not only did he pull the women are too dumb too keep there legs closed card but also the black genocide and the racism was legal does that make it right and then he had the nerve to pull a black woman aside and tell her you know planned parenthood doesn't like black people. These people stoop so low for people who are suppose to believe in preserving life.These comments only make me strive harder to use my intelligence and be proud of being a woman and be insanely proud to be a BLACK woman.So I just want the anti-choice people to realize that if the point of you doing all this crazy crap is to shame me and manipulate my choices when it comes to my reproductive rights. I just wanna let you know your mission has been aborted,its not affective.Peace,Love,Choice!!!

May's Episode of "The A Word" is Up!

And if you missed it live- did you miss a good show! Check it out online!

The description:

Nicole and Damillia host May 2011's episode of "The A Word" and discuss the racist/sexist billboard targeting African American women who have abortions, the sheer amount of bills introduced this year to restrict abortion (especially one that legalizes killing doctors who perform abortions), why they open the show by saying that they've had an abortion, and discuss a recent article about black women's supposed unattractiveness.