Power Structure of Oppression
(Source: mycypherkeepsmoving)
Tracks
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
According to an ongoing study conducted by Black Women’s Blueprint, sixty percent of Black girls have experienced sexual abuse before the age of 18. More than 300 Black women nationwide participated in the research project. A similar study conducted by The Black Women’s Health Imperative seven years ago found the rate of sexual assault was approximately 40%.
Brooke Axtell, Black Women, Sexual Assault, And The Art Of Resistance.
Also from the article:
(via letterstomycountry)There are many reasons why Black women may choose not to report incidences of sexual assault. Survivors of all races often fear that they will not be believed or will be blamed for their attack, but Black women face unique challenges.
Historically, law enforcement has been used to control African-American communities through brutality and racial profiling. It may be difficult for a Black woman to seek help if she feels it could be at the expense of African-American men or her community. The history of racial injustice (particularly the stereotype of the Black male as a sexual predator) and the need to protect her community from further attack might persuade a survivor to remain silent.
Worry About Your Own Uterus: So you're pro-life and want to ban abortions?
Let me guess. Drug bans have been an extraordinary success. Banning guns will make them magically disappear. If you want to ban abortions you must exist in a sterile environment where you are sheltered from the real world.
My opinions on abortions are simple. I would never want to outlaw abortions. I’ve seen black market and third world medical conditions. I’d rather see less women in a place where they feel like their only option is to abort. In that sense I’d like to see less abortions happen.
When I went to Uganda to provide medical care with a group of volunteer medics and doctors I saw all I can handle of black market & third world medical conditions. I’m pro life because I want to see less abortions. I’m pro-choice because subjecting women at home to what I saw in Uganda would to be an injustice I can’t handle.
How can you be “pro-life” and be willing to put women in such a risk? What sort of pro-life position is it to create a black market for abortions? Abortions wont happen in back alleys if you get your ban. They will happen in conditions that will make a back alley look like a surgical suit in an hospital emergency room. What sort of “pro-life” individual wants to subject another human being to horrific medical conditions?
Am I making any sense? Do people understand that replacing your version of injustice with another isn’t a solution to anything?
I invite anyone who wants to ban abortions to join me for a tour of the real world. When you first leave your sterile existence you will be terrified. The residents of reality will lead you safely into the real world. Come join the rest of humanity in a loving, dangerous, horrific and terribly wonderful existence. In the real world your mind will be opened to an amazing reality that might just blow your mind.
However until you join the rest of us here in reality you have no right to reach beyond your sterile bubble and try to effect our world. Real people live here. Real people who bleed real blood and die real deaths. This ain’t no fantasy. It’s much better if you’re worthy of it.
Keep it up wswni. Only the dead stop learning. The living can be reached with a message worth sharing. You girls are doing a great job! I’ve gotta go get an old 1930s ford tractor running. The real world is awesome! You girls are in it with me and millions of others. I don’t doubt that for a second!
Here are some awesome and empowering quotes from several very strong female celebrities.
Fabulous, but Roseanne Barr is a really big transphobe, so I wish she wasn’t on this list. We aren’t even talking unknowing ignorance, but flat-out hate and discrimination that she’s well-aware of. She does a lot of that “real women” talk.
Kirsten Stewarts and Kerry Washingtons are my favorite. I could also do without Roseanne barr. She was really disappointing.
your grace is wasted in your face
(Source: takemetothedungeons)
If Hogwarts Enabled Internet Access
I mean, honestly. The baby can’t thank you if he or she is dead. Let’s get real.
Planned Parenthood does many other helpful services that are not abortion. A lot of PP’s don’t even offer abortions. The prenatal care they offer is wonderful and affordable. Let’s get real.
Your time would be better spent taking a class on not sucking at Photoshop, OP.
Congratulations on finding a nice piece of propaganda to copy-paste, OP! (And much congratulations to whichever anti-choicer scrounged up a calculator and found the divide key!)
I don’t know if you’re just a superhuman with no medical needs whatsoever, but sometimes people need to go to the doctor for multiple things, over multiple visits in one year. We get sick. We run out of prescription refills. Unexpected things happen.
I personally have been to Planned Parenthood multiple times in the last year- for my annual Pap/birth control appointment, and then on several other occasions to be treated for urinary tract infections.
Yes, I am only one person, but Planned Parenthood has helped me multiple times. They have rendered multiple services. They have spent multiple appointment slots, multiple laboratory tests, multiple sliding scale fees because I’m a poor grad student, and multiple hours of the doctors’/nurses’/lab techs’/receptionists’ time on me. They are right to report each instance of serving me as an individual service rendered. The fact that my urinary tract is a terrible hotbed of recurring infection is irrelevant.
So when you (or really, the author of this image, because you have yet to demonstrate any semblance of independent thought) imply that Planned Parenthood is somehow dishonest by reporting their services rendered as individual services rendered, you are only serving to prove that you have no knowledge of our medical care system.
For any action X that a PP healthcare provider performs on a patient, (whether that be an STI test, Pap smear, birth control consultation, IUD insertion, or administering antibiotics for someone’s 10th UTI that year), only 3 in 100 of those Xs will be an abortion. It doesn’t matter if one patient needs ten things in one visit, those ten things are still separate services that PP works hard and depletes resources to provide.
As for your allegations about the money Planned Parenthood makes on abortion: No fucking shit.
In the United States, the Hyde Amendment blocks all federal Medicaid programs from covering abortion services. The majority of states also block state Medicaid coverage of abortions. Some states have also passed bans on using private insurance coverage for abortion, and most insurance plans don’t cover elective abortion anyway. Every last person who walks into Planned Parenthood for an abortion must find a way to finance it. PP cannot and does not subsidize abortion care
Compare this to contraception, STI testing/treatment, and cancer screenings, all of which are heavily subsidized by local and federal programs such as Title X. A huge number of people who walk into Planned Parenthood for non-abortion services receive their care at a reduced (or nonexistent) fee, sometimes at a loss by PP.
But don’t take my word for it, let’s actually look at the numbers:
In 2009-2010, Planned Parenthood made a total of $320.1 million from its health clinics. This is the money paid by patients to PP for services rendered and accounts for 36% of PP’s total revenue that year.
That’s only one-third of the money PP needs to stay in business. It’s not exactly a cash cow.
In 2009-2010, Planned Parenthood’s operating budget exceeded $1 billion. And 46% of their revenue came from government services, grants, and reimbursements.
But none of that almost half of PP’s income can be used on abortions. None.
So yes, people who want abortions from PP have to pay for them. That’s now healthcare works in this country, especially when private and public insurance programs are banned from paying for a certain service.
It costs money to keep a health clinic running. Planned Parenthood must pay its doctors, nurses, lab staff, receptionists, and building maintenance employees. Every procedure, from Pap smears to UTI urinalysis, requires expensive medical equipment, some of which must be replaced for every patient.
And, thanks to the “pro-life” movement, Planned Parenthood must pay for security measures above and beyond anything required for any other health clinic. My local Planned Parenthood is equipped with security guards, bulletproof glass, and a system of doors that everyone must be buzzed through- and this PP doesn’t even provide abortions.
My apologies, the terrorist nature of the anti-choice movement got me a little derailed. If you’ll return your attention to the 2009-2010 annual report once more, I’d just like to point out that PP spends 68% of its money on medical services, another 15% on non-medical program services (mostly comprehensive sexual education and outreach), and 1% on international family planning. This is an organization that spends 84% on dedicated program services, earning it four stars from CharityNavigator.org.
And just in case you still think Planned Parenthood is making billions and billions of dollars (mua ha ha ha) off its patients: in 2009-2010, PP earned $18 million in excess of its >$1 billion (that’s $1029 million) operating expenses. That’s like if you made a budget of $100, and in the end you had $1.70 extra. No one is getting rich off abortions.
And as for your minor hissy fit over “90% of pregnant people get abortions at PP!!!!!11” - you’re looking at the wrong numbers.
One of PP’s most crucial services to pregnant people are free or low-cost pregnancy tests administered by medical professionals. In 2009, PP administered over one million of these. An official pregnancy test (blood or urine) is what millions of low-income individuals need to get onto Medicaid and other forms of social assistance that they will need to have and raise their child.
Once an individual has a Planned Parenthood doctor’s certification that they are pregnant, they can use their Medicaid coverage to see a permanent OB/GYN in a private practice. They may not come back to Planned Parenthood over the course of their pregnancy, but Planned Parenthood still made it possible for them to continue their pregnancy and raise their child.
And no, religiously motivated “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” cannot provide the same service, because while they do offer drugstore urine stick pregnancy tests, they are not staffed with medical professionals and cannot legally certify a pregnancy.
So when you claim that 90% of pregnant people at PP want abortions, you are ignoring the millions of people who go to PP suspecting they are pregnant and who receive help in getting prenatal care from outside doctors. And you are ignoring the people who find out they aren’t pregnant, and then receive the help and contraception they need to make sure they never have an unwanted pregnancy.
Planned Parenthood is a multifaceted organization that helps literally millions of people with millions of different life situations. Sit down and leave the math to the professionals.
BAM!
this is a wonderously thorough take down. love it!
Reblogging for commentary.
Shitmystudentswrite posted something so beautiful I just had to make a cheesy wallpaper quote out of it. Here’s the original post.
