“A woman’s right to control her own body is taken for granted now, and younger people can scarcely believe that abortion used to be a criminal offense, punishable by a prison sentence for the woman and the abortionist,” wrote Jennifer Worth in her article ‘A Deadly Trade’ (The Guardian, 1-5-2005).
Jennifer Worth worked as a midwife and district nurse in London’s impoverished East Side neighborhoods during the 1950s. She lived with and worked alongside the Anglican nuns/midwives from the Community of Saint John the Divine (the Midwives of Saint Raymund Nonnatus in both her memoir and BBC series Call the Midwife.) In this time before effective birth control and legal abortions, the women she cared for had multiple, closely-spaced, and often unplanned/unwanted pregnancies. Of course, women from higher socioeconomic levels had access to to safe (if not legal) abortions. From what I have read, through her work as a district nurse and midwife, Jennifer Worth became a deeply committed Christian as well as an outspoken supporter of women’s reproductive freedoms, including the right to safe, legal abortions. Showing that these do not need to be mutually exclusive.
I am currently besotted by both the BBC series Call the Midwife and the trilogy of Jenifer Worth’s memoirs (Call the Midwife, Shadows of the Workhouse, and Farewell to the East End). I plan to use some of the Season 1 episodes of Call the Midwife next week for the summer quarter narrative medicine course I am teaching, and I envision using some of the episodes in future community health nursing courses. The series depicts many of the same–or similar–community health nursing issues that are still pertinent today and within the U.S. context. Of course, the Call the Midwife series also includes some of the early developments of Britain’s National Health Service, which for us in the U.S. seem oh so progressive (or is it oh so socialist?)
How is it that women’s reproductive rights in our country seem to be going backwards–oh so retro?
I just turned 54 and am blessed with having ‘come of age’ during a time of reasonably decent access to effective birth control and safe, legal abortion services. Similar to my belief in the germ theory, I took it as a given that these same (or better: more male methods of birth control anyone?) advancements would be available to my children and all future generations. Sure, I’ve had the mass mailing dire prediction/requests for donations from Planned Parenthood, and I’ve followed the legal retrogressive shenanigans in many of the Bible Belt states, but I never thought it could really touch me all the way out here at the far edge of North America, in the true blue area of Seattle. Until this week’s news of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the (seriously–where did they get this name?) Hobby Lobby. To paraphrase Martin Niemoller: “First they came for the poor women of Texas—and I didn’t speak out.” Shame on me.
My U.S. Senator Patty Murray sent me an e-mail saying she’s furious about the Supreme Court ruling and vows to fight it, although I’m not exactly sure how she plans to do this. But I gave her some money, perhaps so she can buy another pair of tennis shoes to march through the halls of Congress and kick some butt. You go girl! I am very happy to live in a state with so many women in key government positions. Our country would be better off with more women in key government positions.
The American Nurses Association issued a statement condemning the Hobby Lobby ruling, stating:
“The Affordable Care Act sought to provide millions of Americans access to basic health care and preventive services, including contraception, and essential component to women’s health. However, this ruling places an unfair burden on women, particularly those with lower incomes, who may not be able to access medically appropriate contraceptive care due to the additional expense.”
Julie Rovner wrote a nice, yet disturbingly Kafkaesque, article “Did the Supreme Court Tip Its Hand on Contraceptive Cases Yet to Come?” yesterday for Kaiser Health News.
What will you do when the Hobby Lobby (or the Conservative male Supreme Court Justices) come for you–or your loved ones? Calling the midwife won’t work by then.
Addendum: The National Women’s Law Center launched the CoverHer hotline to help women who are having trouble getting access to women’s preventive health services – especially contraception – at no cost to them. The user-friendly hotline provides personalized instructions on how to navigate the health insurance process to ensure women get the coverage for preventive services they are guaranteed under the health care law and includes critical follow-up to track the results.
The Center will use the aggregated data it collects from CoverHer to identify systemic problems with implementation of the ACA’s birth control and other preventive health benefits and will use its advocacy and outreach efforts to overcome these obstacles. CoverHer builds off of the Center’s former Pills4Us hotline, which helped hundreds of women obtain the birth control that they needed.
Website: www.CoverHer.org
Hotline number: 1-866-745-5487