Reproductive Rights
New Film: Abortion, Morality, and the Liberation of Women
- Category: Reproductive Rights
By Debra Sweet
We at World Can’t Wait are excited to announce the new film Abortion, Morality and the Liberation of Women is now available on YouTube!
From the description of the film:
A whole generation of women and men have been kept in the dark from the basic facts around abortion rights, and left disarmed in the face of the anti-abortion, anti-women movement which will not stop nor find common ground with women's right to control the most basic of decisions affecting their lives. This film, Abortion, Morality, and the Liberation of Women, documents an August, 2009 discussion between Susan Wicklund, M.D., author of This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Provider (available at bookstores and on ) and Sunsara Taylor, writer for Revolution newspaper (find A Declaration: For Women's Liberation and the Emancipation of All Humanity at revcom.us), and aims to bring scientific and moral clarity to the topic of women's right to abortion.
In memory of
Dr. George Tiller
August 8, 1941 - May 31, 2009
A production of World Can't Wait
Contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or (866) 973-4463 to organize resistance to the anti-abortion movement and help spread this film, and this message. DVD copies are available to student groups, teachers, and others who want to organize public showings.
Clip 6: Dr. Tiller Was a Hero
Telling Women What to Do at the Super Bowl
- Category: Reproductive Rights
By Lina Thorne .jpg)
Note: The trial of the admitted murderer Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion activist who says he shot Dr. Tiller last May because he was “saving babies” and is arguing justifiable homicide in the Wichita courtroom started last Friday (on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, ‘coincidentally’). Debra Sweet has a piece about it. You can also see the updates on RH Reality Check.
Right now, the most media buzz about abortion centers around CBS’s decision to reverse their policy of prohibiting all “advocacy” ads during the Superbowl, and accept millions of dollars from Focus on the Family for a 30 second ad attacking women’s right to abortion.
Women Will not be Gagged!
- Category: Reproductive Rights
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Women and men, in D.C., San Francisco, Austin, Houston, and other cities mobilized last week to confront Christian Fundamentalists out to abolish abortion. As Jamilah Hoffman said on a Houston tv station, “if women don’t have control over their bodies, they are enslaved”. The protests against those out to enslave women were important, angry, and powerful – but they must grow in numbers and determination.
Below are some notes from Debra Sweet’s blog, and a video from the San Francisco protest.
In front of the Supreme Court on January 22, 2010, I waded into the crowds of anti-abortion kids (followed by photographers and video, including the clip below featured in the Washington Post coverage) on a mission. I wanted to know what and how they think; how they are being told to think, and challenge them. In every group, there was that one or two who listened, and looked me in the eye, and communicated that they had never heard anyone say what I said, and were intrigued and thinking.
Statement from Dr. Susan Wicklund: For George Tiller - Never Back Down, Never Stop Telling the Truth for Women
- Category: Reproductive Rights
Message to Wichita, Kansas vigil honoring Dr. Tiller
Hello to everyone here showing your respect for Dr Tiller and your belief in the freedom of choice. I am sorry I am not physically here with you, but please know that I am here in spirit
None of us can pretend to know what Dr Tiller would say to us right now. We know what he used to say about understanding the heart of a woman. We know what he believed about each woman having the knowledge to really understand what was best for HER.
In Support of Doctor LeRoy Carhart
- Category: Reproductive Rights
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Sign the petition to the Attorney General of Nebraska.
Last spring, after Dr. George Tiller was gunned down by one of their own, the anti-abortion movement was emboldened in its threats towards abortion providers and patients. Dr. LeRoy Carhart, the courageous, caring abortion provider and long-time associate of Dr. George Tiller, has stepped forward to take up Dr. Tiller's cause to "Trust Women" in the face of threats both violent and legal.
Battleground Nebraska: Anti-abortion Extremists Set Their Sights North of Wichita
- Category: Reproductive Rights
By Wendy Norris .jpg)
Shortly after pioneering Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was murdered on May 31 and his Wichita clinic subsequently closed, other abortion physicians bravely stepped into the breach. Among the most public was Nebraska-based Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who for 11 years had traveled to Wichita monthly to perform late abortions at Tiller’s clinic. Carhart quickly announced he would continue Tiller’s work either at his Nebraska clinic in Bellevue or in Kansas.
And just as quickly, anti-abortion forces switched their campaign against Tiller to focus on Carhart. In an eerie similarity to Tiller’s struggle to defend himself against relentless legal attacks by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, Nebraska’s attorney general Jon Bruning spoke about Carhart in a disparaging manner that signaled possible future legal action.
Confronting the Anti-Women, Anti-Abortion “Genocide Awareness Project” at the University of Houston
- Category: Reproductive Rights
By Jamilah Hoffman
Last Friday afternoon, the Dean of Students at the University of Houston sent an email letting the university community know that a group calling itself the Center for Bioethical Reform was “using its First Amendment rights” to present something called the “Genocide Awareness Project” (GAP) at the campus for three days. I read the email thinking Darfur, Rwanda or Serbia, places where real genocides have occurred.
But actually, this group makes the outrageous and infuriating comparison between abortion and actual genocide, and is going to campuses around the country showing enlarged and graphic photos of alleged aborted fetuses, trying to mobilize opposition to a woman’s right to abortion among college students.
I was pissed off and figured I had to do something. But what was that going to be? The U of H campus is not known for its radicalism or even activism. It would be difficult to corral a bunch of students to protest this outrageous display, but I knew these people couldn't go unopposed. That's when I thought of Norma Rae.
Needed: Women & Men Taking to the Streets Stop the Abortion Ban!
- Category: Reproductive Rights
11-19-09 Press Alert
Opposition Grows to Stupak Amendment Banning Abortion in Healthcare Bill;
National Group Confers on Action Plans
Panel of women leaders “Abortion, Womens' Lives, & the Democrats' Woman-Killing Abortion Ban.”
When: Saturday November 21 2:00 to 4:00pm EST
Where: 16 Beaver Street New York City and by live webcast
Why should the right-wingers in Congress set the terms for women's lives? Why should the "tea-baggers" and racist lunatics be the only ones protesting in the streets? What does the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to healthcare reform mean for women’s lives?
These are questions being address Saturday at the national meeting of World Can’t Wait, a group formed in 2005 to pursue the Bush regime’s program of pre-emptive wars, torture, illegal spying, and its alliance with a “narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism.”
Participants are:
Fran Luck, Producer of “Joy of Resistance” on WBAI Pacifica Radio
Erin Matson, Vice President for Action, the National Organization for Women
` Sunsara Taylor, writer, Revolution Newspaper
Plans to protest the Stupak-Pitts Amendment will be announced and further developed during the discussion. The National Organization for Women and World Can’t Wait have called for the Amendment to be defeated, and for people to vocally protest its premise that women will not be allowed to purchase coverage for abortion even with their own money, if they participate in the public option plan.
In a related action, National Organization for Women President Terri O’Neil will be leading a protest at the office of Joseph Pitts, the amendment’s co-author, in ChesterPA on Saturday at 10:30 am.
“This action by the House is a stronger attack on abortion access than we saw during the terrible years of the anti-abortion Bush administration. It’s a grave threat to women’s control over their own bodies, pushed by Democratic leaders. If these restrictions pass, they will lead to the deaths of women, endangering the health and hopes of women forced to carry unwanted pregnancies,” said Debra Sweet, Director of The World Can’t Wait.
The Stupak-Pitts Amendment Must Be Defeated
- Category: Reproductive Rights
A Vicious Attack On Women's Rights
by T. Redtree
As the House version of the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" drew to conclusion, a fateful Friday night vote took place. Suddenly a debate over health care turned into a last minute up or down "compromise" vote about the future of abortion.
The so-called compromise titled the "Stupak Pitts Amendment," backed by anti-abortion Democrats, has done more to set back and effectively wipe out the right to abortion than anything the religious right was able to accomplish during 8 years of the Bush regime.
Reproductive Rights