From Indianz.com (curtsy: One Tenacious Baby Mama), one reaction to South Dakota’s sweeping abortion ban:
The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.
“To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said to me last week. “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”
My first reaction was: How awesome is that?
But at the same time, it’s too easy to go “wow, that’s great” and not give it any further thought. For a more thoughtful take, read this post from Brownfemipower, criticizing how white feminists too-often discuss race-related stories:
But almost *none* even question why there isn’t *already* an abortion clinic on Pine Ridge. Almost *none* of these bloggers understand that Native peoples are serviced by tribal hospitals–and tribal hospitals have been forbidden by Federal law to give abortions since the 1980’s.
They also don’t know that Native women are raped indiscriminately by white men who know they can’t be tried under tribal laws, Native domestic violence shelters are forbidden from mentioning colonization as a reason for the high rates of domestic violence in Native country, and that Pine Ridge just so happens to be the poorest community in the entire U.S.
(See also Melissa’s comments at A Womb of One’s Own).
An article in Indian Country discusses why this issue is especially important to American Indian women:
”I have very strong opinions of what happened. These are a bunch of white guys determining what a woman should do with her body,” Fire Thunder said.
Fire Thunder was a nurse and has worked with women who were traumatized by rape.
”When a woman is raped and becomes pregnant she does not have the choice of aborting. How many men at the state house have ever been raped?” Fire Thunder asked.
American Indian women will be impacted, if the law takes effect, in greater numbers than any other group. According to national statistics, American Indian women are sexually assaulted at a rate 3.5 times higher than all other racial groups. That means there are seven rapes per 1,000 American Indian women [that statistic is per year, I presume. –Amp].
”It is very important that we have access to safe, legal pregnancy termination services, whether it is emergency contraceptives right after the assault or an abortion service,” said Charon Asetoyer, director of the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center located on the Yankton Sioux Reservation.
She said her organization gets asked weekly by women for referrals. She added that her organization refers the women to Planned Parenthood.
American Indian women who live in the western part of South Dakota must either travel the few hundred miles to Sioux Falls or to Nebraska, which in both cases becomes expensive.
”This will force women out of the state and would cost more money and more time and a lot of women may not realize they have that option. It increases the trauma for those who have been sexually assaulted,” Asetoyer said.
”It’s this big myth that Native American women don’t terminate pregnancies; they have always terminated pregnancies, do now and will in the future,” she said.
Most of the stories I’ve read make it sound as if Fire Thunder is acting in isolation from the broader pro-choice movement. That’s not true; among other things, she’s on the board of directors of South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, the group running the initiative campaign to repeal the abortion ban. On the other hand, Planned Parenthood doesn’t appear to be entirely on the same page as Fire Thunder; they’ve released a statement thanking Fire Thunder, but also saying “We have no intention of closing our existing clinic in Sioux Falls, nor do we plan to open another clinic at this time.”
For more background information about President Cecilia Fire Thunder and Pine Ridge, check out this post at Wampum, reprinting a brief article from this past December.
If you’d like to donate some money to help support the proposed new Planned Parenthood (or the Oglala Sioux Tribe in general), Bitch PhD has the address. If you’d like to contribute to the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center, here’s the info. If you’d like to contribute to the SD Campaign For Healthy Families, click on the image link to the right.
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Great post. This should make for a good case.
The most intense fact situation I could dream up would be if they served a white minor incest victim. It would illuminate the Christain savages . . . savages that smile proudly while they deal out Christian justice:
Picture the save-the-sperm boys that scream out “baby-killer.”
IIRC, black cohosh is a abortificient used by native tribes in the Americas.
So, yeah. Long tradition of dealing with unwanted pregnancies. Of course, as many tribes were nomadic, it’s a neccesity that there be a way of preventing childbirth at inoportune moments.
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This was the best ideal thought of and all the haters blow it out of the water!!!!!! Thanks to all these people it will never happen. If this was made then the life of alot of the indian women would be differnt. For my best fren was raped and pregant from this she hated the baby and even went as far as trying to kill this lil girl. People just don’t know the heart breakoon this Pine Ridge Rez. And the ones that think they know DONT KNOW SHIT!!!!!!!!
GOOD TRY CELCLIA FIRE THUNDER, DONT LET THE HATERS BRING YOU DOWN!!!!! KEEP WORKING FOR THE ONES WHO CARE>