Pro-Choice Wednesdays

The right to choice is something i've always felt incredibly strongly about. Hopefully I can continue this as an ongoing weekly component I can add to my blog. Here's some headlines for now:




A woman decided to upload a YouTube video and live Tweet about her abortion experience in order to let people that it isn't as scary or shameful or any other negative thing that people stigmatize it to be. Of course, no good deed goes unpunished, and now she is receiving death threats for being vocal about an experience that too many are forced to be silent about.


- Racial conspiracy on an anti-abortion billboard/campaign? Seriously... "Black children are an endangered species"?? Someone needs to tell these people that ALL HUMANS are the SAME species. And if this statistic about 40% of African American pregnancies ending in abortion IS true, maybe they need to address the more pressing issue of why this is happening, and working to do away with those problems (because let's face it, racism is still strong in America and many African American women don't have the same advantages and privileges that, say, white males do in this country.

- A controversial abortion bill in Utah may end up criminalizing miscarriages if the woman acted in a "reckless" manner. Granted, I'm not too fond of the fact that a 17 year old girl paid someone to beat her up so she might have a spontaneous miscarriage, but then maybe we should wonder why this girl chose such an extreme method in order to induce a late term abortion of sorts. Obviously no one could make such an extreme decision lightly.

Miami Clinic Access Project!

The Miami Clinic Access Project is composed of an array of wonderful, dedicated individuals whose focus is to make sure that the women in Miami continue to have a choice in their own reproduction. They arrive every Saturday morning at 6 a.m. at A Choice for Woman, a clinic in Kendall, and stand outside with signs and support in order to make the pro-choice stance known. Pro-life/anti-choice activists have been arriving at the clinic for a number of years now to harass and scare off women who are already making a difficult, personal choice. MCAP, therefore, provides a counter-presence, essentially the real voice of the pro-choice movement, and show those who work at and those who require the services of A Choice for Women that they are on their side and that they won't let anyone be intimidated.

I didn't find out about MCAP til perhaps sometime last year. I'll admit, I was a bit intimidated to go. As most of my friends, I thought that I might lash out at one of the pro-lifers. However, I decided to put all this aside and made my way to the clinic last Saturday to essentially show that I am also committed to the Pro-Choice movement. I went with my friend Allie and we met up with another friend, Christian, upon arriving. The pro-life side wasn't as big as I was anticipating (I'd estimate about 15-20 in total) and at least by the time I arrived, no one had any signs with unpleasant looking abortions thankfully. I met the MCAP group whose names sadly all escape me (I'm terrible with names but hopefully I learn all their names soon enough) and was given a sign to hold. My instructions were basically to try and block the view of the pro-lifers whenever a car drove in or out of the clinic. Asides from one old woman with a rosary telling me she thought i'd "make more money as a prostitute"*, there were no real negative incidents while I was there. The group actually has a camera running at all times just in case an incident should occur (I was told by one girl that one time, a man from the anti-choice side ran up to one of our defenders and purposely cut himself on one of our signs and called the cops to try and say we attacked him. Luckily, the cops didn't believe him.)

SnakeGirl actually created this short documentary about the defenders some years ago:





If you're interested in joining the defenders, just show up at A Choice For Women (6660 SW 117th Avenue, Miami, FL) any and every Saturday morning between 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. MCAP provides water, signs, and even coffee, not to mention awesome company :) Make sure to park at the BJ's lot across the street by Sunset Drive. If you want to learn more about the group, contact Julie at juliamiami2@gmail.com. I'm hoping to attend at least once a month from now on and I hope you'll join us!


*I was later told by one of the girls that the anti-choice side has a conspiracy theory that we don't actually want to be there but that we are paid by the clinic. Boy, are they wrong.