Marysia asked for links to human rights organizations people can support if they feel compelled to leave Amnesty International due to Amnesty’s new abortion policy. I commented over there, but thought I would post them here as well.

Consistent Life are suggesting the following:

Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC)

National Religious Campaign Against Torture

Human Rights First

Friends Committee on National Legislation

I sent a donation to FCNL, with a note explaining that I was coming over from Amnesty and why. I also let AI know that I would be supporting other organizations and why.

Additionally, I have been looking into Women for Women International, for people who want to offer women in war zones such as Darfur life-affirming, nonviolent assistance.* I don’t think that WWI is involved with abortion advocacy, but I have written to them for a clarification.

* I was particularly infuriated this week by the Amnesty spokesperson who cited a World Health Organization estimate that 68,000 women die annually as a result of abortions, and said, “Once we looked at that figure, neutrality would have meant essentially saying it’s okay that 68,000 women a year die because of criminalization of abortion.” That is a monstrous claim, and the exact equivalent of warmongers accusing those of us who opposed the Iraq invasion of saying it was okay for Saddam Hussein to murder his own people.

“…and we respond with legalized abortion.”

–Graciela Olivarez, separate statement to the Rockefeller Commission on Population Growth And The American Future, 1972. (Some things never change. Unfortunately.)

I was working on a post about this, then JivinJehosaphat went and beat me to it: Katha Pollitt’s first blog post is soliciting funds for a pregnant Tennessee woman.

She’s a single mom with a 19 month old; co-conceiver skipped town; no child support because that dude skipped town; she is clinically very depressed and extremely desperate.

Naturally, the funds are being collected not for legal aid or mental health care, but for an abortion. To Jivin J’s points, I would add this: although there is much debate over the exact incidence of post-abortion emotional health sequelae, one thing on which virtually everyone agrees is that certain factors make it more likely that a woman will have problems. Those factors include pre-existing mental health issues, and feeling pressured into having an abortion. So, not only is this woman impoverished, abandoned, and depressed; but the abortion that Pollitt and her readers are buying her will leave her impoverished, abandoned, depressed, and at risk for further mental health problems.

But hey, at least she won’t have her son or daughter.

I’ve said it before — the reason we still have abortion is not because our society isn’t conservative enough. It’s because we’re not progressive enough. Not progressive enough to ensure social and economic justice, especially for women. Not progressive enough to embrace all human beings as members of the human family for whom we are responsible. And not progressive enough to renounce violence as a means of solving problems.

I’m very excited to see that Marysia has started the Nonviolent Choice Blog. She will be posting on pro-life feminism, a subject which she has studied extensively.

Marysia is also developing the Nonviolent Choice Directory, with the aim of providing “wide spectrum of resources necessary to alleviate the root causes of abortion–from comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education to support for the women and children of crisis pregnancies before, during, and ever after birth, at all levels of society from the individual to the global.” This is an ambitious project, but one that is sorely needed. I encourage everyone to visit and give her feedback.

The Christian Science Monitor ran a story last week, “Housing holds back moms in college”, about colleges starting to provide housing and other needs for student mothers (ht: Mother Talkers).

There’s a lot of good news here. It’s the kind of thing that Feminists for Life’s College Outreach Program has been working on for years — improving options for pregnant and parenting students by recognizing that their needs are just as legitimate as the needs of the childless, and fighting to get those needs met. (I was hoping that the College Outreach Program might be mentioned, but no luck. If you have experience with the program, I would encourage you to send a message to the reporter and/or the editors of the Monitor to let them know about your work for the advancement of student moms.)

Unfortunately, making college more accessible to mothers is seen by many as a sort of luxury or favor to mothers, rather than a matter of justice.

“Institutions should do whatever they can to aid in this process,” says Chelsea Toder, a co-president of VOX, a branch of Planned Parenthood. But, she asks, “If you provide housing to undergraduate mothers, how about married students? … [Or] students who have to care for family members? Everyone has things in their lives that limit them, and it is difficult to figure out when you must alter your own life and when a system should be altered for you.

This is exactly the mindset that pro-life feminists have criticized for years — that we have to alter ourselves and destroy our children in order to fit into a system that was made by and for people who can’t give birth.

Yes, it’s true that institutions can’t adapt themselves to each and every unique situation of people’s lives. But motherhood isn’t some exotic and unpredictable circumstance; over 80 percent of women in the U.S. have or will have children, and over four million women have babies each year. We recognize that it would be unjust to exclude people with physical disabilities from higher education, so colleges must accomodate them. We don’t seem to have come to that recognition with regard to mothers yet, even though motherhood is much more common.

Besides, I’m willing to bet that there are a lot of single fathers walking around on college campuses.

Let me get this straight. A society so values boys over girls that sex-selection abortion has resulted in a large surplus of men, who are now having trouble finding women to marry. And who’s to blame for this state of affairs? Feminists.

(The blogger also says to someone in the comments: “1. You’re an atheist. So, do try to recall that you don’t get to call anything “wrong” that doesn’t involved your behavior unless it is factually inaccurate.” When are Americans going to get over this idea that morality can only derive from religion? Sadly, it doesn’t look as though that day is coming anytime soon.)