Thursday

feminist heroism

Via my friend D.R.:


Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, is planning to open a Planned Parenthood on reservation land which will provide abortions. The state has no jurisdiction over reservation lands.

Ms. Fire Thunder's address, should you wish to send a letter of support:

Cecilia Fire Thunder, President
Oglala Sioux Tribal Council
Pine Ridge, SD 57770

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's awesome!

Kizz said...

FYI over at BitchPhD.com there's information about how to donate to the clinic, about the tribe's educational efforts and about how to donate to the tribe, who aren't terribly well-off financially.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
That's awesome!

No. It's AWFUL !! Theres nothing awesome about killing an unborn baby. Sad for mother and child, but not awesome.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the "It's awful" comment. I am all for a clinic that helps women, but NOT one that provides abortions. Definitely a sad thing.

Anonymous said...

Great post.
Didn't you used to link to "feminists for life"?

Julie said...

Yep. I think the FFL folks have a very interesting point of view. I should add their link again. I somehow lost it when I switched over.

KS said...

Earlier today, I posted this to another blog that was discussing the Indians:

Who decides who gets to have an abortion in South Dakota? S. D. State Sen. Bill Napoli, R-Rapid City does.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls "convenience." He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother's life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.

BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june06/abortion_3-03.html

and somebody posted this in response:
Bill Napoli knows what's best for women:
http://minimumsecurity.net/toons2006/6034.htm

KS said...

Oops, guess I better snip it: http://snipurl.com/o1np

Anonymous said...

As someone who completely agrees with the Feminists For Life philosophy, I find this pretty sad. Let`s not forget that abortion is a business like any other and its possible that they are using the Native population to make money in yet another depressing way. Its kind of fitting actually, because one of the founders of Planned Parenthood was a white supremacist and they love to go put clinics wherever minorities are.

Anonymous said...

As a Native woman, I think this is tragic and I doubt it will really happen. Native American culture is the ultimate "natural family living" culture., Abortion, to most, is unthinkable. Abortion is against nature and contradicts our whole instinct about respect for life at all its stages.

Anonymous said...

I have to disagree with the last "anonymous" poster. In Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia: 1781, he discusses the use of natural abortificants among Native American women. You can check this out for yourself at www.humanitiesweb.org.

Anonymous said...

It depends on which tribe. The article describes it as a survival need, the women had to help hunt for everyone to eat in bad times, so bearing kids wasn`t possible then.
Many Plains peoples used to look at twins as bad luck, so for the good of the tribe they were left to die on top of a mountain or hill. Barbara Kingsolver talks about this in her book "Animal Dreams" and Annie Dillard wrote about it too. Some things were done for the perceived good for the unit like the Jefferson article describes & the abandoning of twins. You have a point, dedanaan, its still sad though.

Anonymous said...

I don't understand--doesn't "Feminists for Life" support making abortion illegal? Where do you stand?

Anonymous said...

I would like to see authoritative evidence that "one of the founders of Planned Parenthood was a white supremacist."

The same for "they love to go put clinics wherever minorities are."

Please back up your claims. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Margaret Sanger, the founder of PP, was a known eugenicist. You can read her 1922 book "Pivot of Civilization" and read her words for yourself. Here are a few examples from other of her writings:
“Those least fit to carry on the race are increasing most rapidly...Funds
that should be used to raise the standard of civilization are diverted to
maintenance of those who should have never have been born.” (Margaret
Sanger, p 57).
The motto of the American Birth Control League was ‘More from the fit,
less from the unfit’. Sanger wrote:
“I wish to reiterate that all objections to birth control can be met
unanswerably except one, that the human race will degenerate if the
superior races and the superior-classes among civilized races will curtail
the number of their offspring while inferior races and inferior races in
civilized countries will continue their high birthrate. This must be
prevented by all means....” (Birth Control Review, Sept. 1931, p.268)
Sanger’s Birth Control Review contained various articles from her fellow
eugenicists; including Bernard Stacks, M.D., who wrote:
“We must get rid of the inferior colored races: the Blacks, the Yellow and
the Red races must be exterminated...The white race then may proceed as
follows: Let the Christians exterminate all Jews and Moslems, then the
Protestants kill all Catholics, then let the Ku Klux Klan kill everybody
except the 100% [Nordic types]; then let the Nordic race with blond hair
and blue eyes kill off all the dark complexioned...” (Birth Control Review,
Sept, 1924, p.269)

Anonymous said...

It's true. Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist.

Anonymous said...

and then this...
The Cybercast News Service compared the location of Planned Parenthood abortion clinics with population figures from the 2000 Census:

“In nearly two-thirds (62.5 percent) of the comparisons, the communities with a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic had a higher percentage of blacks than the state did as a whole.

In Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts and Ohio, the communities containing all of the Planned Parenthood abortion clinics had much higher black populations than their respective states, while Idaho, Kentucky, North Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming -- all of which have low black populations -- have none of the organization’s abortion facilities.