Too Many Hoops

Steph Harold over at RH Reality Check has an article up about why some women obtain second trimester abortions. No surprises here. They do it because they have too...raising money, arranging travel and childcare, and jumping through the many legal hoops that anti-choice legislators raise up high (and set on fire) take a lot of time. Also, thanks to the lack of sexual education being taught, many young women take longer to realize they're pregnant, either because they don't recognize the symptoms or go by certain myths that say they can't possibly be pregnant. Sigh...

Tons New to Be Said

Frances Kissling of RH Reality Check asks us, "Abortion: Anything New to Be Said?" in response to registration opening up for the Open Hearts, Open Minds, and Fair Minded Words conference at Princeton coming up in October. The answer is yes, there is still plenty to be said. Now, will both sides be able to hold it together without flying off the handle? I hope so. Either way, you should totally go to the conference if you can at all make it. And you should tell us all about it when you get back, because some of us are broke non-profit workers.

January Y'all, Be There.

The temporary injuction has been extented for the mandatory ultrasound law. Pay special attention to the ladies in pink in that video (the link), because they all rock.

We Love Us Some Pro-Choice Muckraking

So by now everyone should have heard of the awesome documentary 12th and Deleware coming to HBO on August 2nd. If not, the link goes to the trailer, and the documentary is about crisis pregnancy centers and how evil and manipulative they are, to put it a blunt and concise way.

In the same vein NARAL of California has released an awesome report on CPCs in the California area. (Warning: the link opens to a PDF).

And lastly, RH Reality Check's Charlotte Taft details her dealings with a CPC calling itself The White Rose (named after an anti-Nazi resistance group, isn't that classy) when she ran a clinic in Texas in the 80's.

NARAL has a letter to superpages.com and yellowpages.com that everyone can sign, asking the websites to take down any and all CPC advertising that misleads consumers into thinking they provide abortion services, thus violating terms of service for the websites.

Just by looking under Abortion Alternatives (unfortunately, this category doesn't seem to be against TOS policy) in Oklahoma on Yahoo Local, there are 10 listings just within Central Oklahoma. One group has almost as many locations as Planned Parenthood does. Not cool.

Voting?

Well, it's that time of year...candidates are hitting the trail trying to win your all important vote! Now as Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma is a non-profit we can't be involved in any election or electioneering process...we do however want to encourage you...private pro-choice citizen... to make an effort to find out not only how your candidates feel about choice but about women's health and contraception.

In 2008, the world celebrated the election of our current President...in Oklahoma we were mourning our ability (enough Senate votes) to stop any anti-choice legislation for two years. It's been tough.

Vote wisely my friends...