The Purity Myth (19 page)

In addition to the active danger of
Roe’
s being repealed, American

* Not exactly an easy hurdle for girls with abusive parents or, as is, sadly, sometimes the case, girls whose father is responsible for the pregnancy.

women have a whole host of other legislative problems on their plate. A study by the Guttmacher Institute showed that as of 2008, 87 percent of

U.S. counties had no abortion provider.
6
There are even some states, like Mississippi, that have only one abortion provider to serve the entire state.
7
This means that many women, especially those in rural areas, have to travel long distances to get to the nearest provider. Add mandatory waiting peri- ods and misleading counseling about how abortion can cause breast cancer (and other false information), and all of a sudden, procuring an abortion doesn’t seem like such an easily accessed right.

A woman in South Dakota who wants to get an abortion, for example, is subject to so many hurdles—geographic, financial, and legal—that get- ting an abortion is near impossible. Sarah Stoesz, president of Planned Par- enthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, says that in her region, the obstacles make some women so desperate that they take matters into their own hands.

Stoesz tells me the story of an eighteen-year-old living in western South Dakota who had an unplanned pregnancy. Because of financial con- straints that prevented her from traveling across the state to the Planned Parenthood clinic in eastern South Dakota, this young woman inserted a toothpick into her cervix in desperation, hoping it would induce an abor- tion. After several days, she became afraid and called a local doctor to help her. The doctor informed her that removing the toothpick from her cervix might cause an abortion, so he refused to see her.

“There are many, many stories,” says Stoesz. “Every week we hear an- other one.”

Given all these stories, even calling abortion a “right” seems overly opti- mistic. After all, a right that can’t be exercised is not very useful to anyone.

jessica valenti
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As Page points out, the anti-choice movement (whose agenda is so simi- lar to the virginity movement’s that the two seem inextricably linked) is hell- bent not only on stopping women from using any form of contraception, but also on stopping them from having sex before marriage. Abortion is just one small part of a much larger goal.

For example, the virginity/anti-choice movements have recently moved beyond simply advocating for stricter abortion laws and limiting access to birth control—that would be too narrow-minded! Now they also want to tell pregnant women
how
to have their children.

In 2006, a Virginia lawmaker sponsored a bill to forbid unmarried women from using reproductive technology, such as in vitro fertilization, to get pregnant. The bill would have denied women without husbands access to “certain intervening medical technology” that “completely or partially re- places sexual intercourse as the means of conception.”*

For women who already have children, the legislation is downright dangerous. In 2004, a Utah woman was charged with murder when one of her twin babies was stillborn after she refused to have a cesarean section. In South Carolina, Regina McKnight was convicted of homicide and sentenced to twelve years in prison after delivering a stillborn baby, because jurors be-

lieved the court’s claim that her cocaine use had killed the child.
†
In 2006,

lawmakers in Arkansas were considering making it a crime for pregnant women to smoke.
8

This new crop of “fetal protection” laws has created a slippery slope for

* This is what I like to call the “no dick, no deal” law.

†
After an eight-year-long court battle, the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned McKnight’s conviction after finding that medical research linking cocaine to stillbirths is based on “outdated” medical information.

pregnant women, who are being thrown in prison simply for failing to give birth to a healthy baby.

Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Preg- nant Women, was quoted in a piece by Rick Montgomery as having said that this type of punishment is part of a larger trend. “I think thirty years of anti- abortion rhetoric—‘women killing their babies’—has led to a moral vilifica- tion that doesn’t just stick to those who seek to terminate a pregnancy. It’s spreading to all pregnant women.”
9

Now, clearly, no one is arguing that pregnant women should be doing drugs, drinking, or smoking—but there’s no question that these types of laws set a dangerous precedent. How long will it be before women are faulted for delivering stillborn babies because they didn’t take prenatal vitamins, or be- cause they drank the occasional glass of wine?

In 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) re- leased federal guidelines asking all women capable of conceiving to treat themselves as “pre-pregnant,” even if they had no immediate plans to
get
pregnant. So if the above-mentioned hypothetical questions seem like a stretch, think again. If the CDC had its way, all women of reproductive age would “take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight, and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.”
10
*

I’m all for staying healthy, but that’s because I believe in taking care of myself—not in treating my body as a potential incubator at all times.

If you take some time to sift through the rhetoric of caring for women, “life,” and concern for young women’s sexual health, what you’ll find in this

* The vessel will make sure to treat its uterus and surrounding matter with care for the preparation of the almighty fetus!

jessica valenti
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type of legislation is actually quite simple: an underlying fear of women’s sex- uality, an overwhelming need to control it, and an undercurrent of paternal- ism suggesting that women need protection from themselves—even if that means enforcing punitive measures to drive the point home.

y o u h a v e n o t h i n g t o f e a r b u t s e x i t s e l f
While many—if not most—laws and policies concerning women’s bodies re- veal a fear of female sexuality, several stand out in the crowd.

Few examples demonstrate policymakers’ far-reaching panic over young women’s sexuality better than the three-year-long process the FDA under- went to approve emergency contraception (EC) for over-the-counter status (available without a prescription from a pharmacist) and the debates that sur- rounded it. The whole undertaking had all the intrigue of a mystery novel (or perhaps a bad made-for-TV movie): political deceit, resignations, arrests, and, most important, lots and lots of talk about teenage girls having sex.

The FDA approved EC—better known as the morning-after pill or by its brand name, Plan B—prescription use in 1998. The drug, which keeps women from getting pregnant by preventing or delaying ovulation,* started being pushed for over-the-counter availability by major medical associations in 2000, but the FDA didn’t consider making the switch until June 2003.
11

The FDA spent the next three years doing a bureaucratic dance in which it repeatedly delayed its decision and ignored expert after expert who

* The virginity movement argues that EC interferes with the implantation of a fertilized egg, and therefore ends a life. I can’t muster up much empathy for a bunch of cells, or people who would trump cells’ “rights” over an actual born person’s, so I’m going with the medical and scientific definition of the drug.

supported EC’s over-the-counter status. The biggest giveaway that politics trumped science happened in late 2003, when the FDA recommended that EC
not
be available for sale without a prescription, despite a recommenda- tion from an independent joint advisory committee to the FDA to do so. (The committee recommended over-the-counter status in a 23–4 vote; the vote was 27–1 that the drug could be used safely by women of any age.
12
) The concerns that members of the FDA raised were mired in worries about women’s sexuality—namely, that young women would become out of con- trol if given the chance to have sex “without consequences.”

Dr. W. David Hager, one of the FDA committee members who voted against EC’s over-the-counter approval, told
The New York Times:
“What we heard today was frequently about individuals who did not want to take re- sponsibility for their actions and wanted a medication to relieve those conse- quences.”
13
This same man, an ob-gyn and published author who made waves when he suggested prayer as a cure for PMS, was one of the key players in making sure that the FDA rejected the committee’s recommendation.
14
*

It later came to light that FDA medical official Janet Woodcock wrote in an internal memo that over-the-counter status could cause “extreme promis- cuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use

of Plan B.” That’s right—sex-based cults.
†

This line of reasoning may sound familiar. That’s because it’s the exact “concern” that was cited when the HPV vaccine was up for FDA approval,