Stop Blaming, Start Educating - Catholic Identity and Abortion

As a woman and a Catholic, I'm very frustrated that diocesan churches preach the evils and horrors of abortion rather than teach ways to use love, care, and education to prevent unplanned or unwanted pregnancies or find loving homes for unwanted babies.  My fiance and I have discussed this at length and how being pro-choice both fits into our Catholic identity and does not make us pro-abortion.  I support a woman's right to choose, but I think we, as a society, could be doing more.

After much discussion with my fiancé, we have come up with an idea to reduce the abortion rate, thus creating a culture of life that is centered around Christ's primary teaching - love.  Neither of us have any experience in running a non-profit, though we both have volunteer experience, so this is where, hopefully, a blog can help us recruit others to help us with our mission. We are not sure what we would call our organization, but here is what we are all about.

First we would like to give boys and girls more education about sex before and during the onset of puberty, ideally between 4th and 7^th grade.  Sexuality is not something for children to be embarrassed or ashamed of, rather it is a part of how we identify ourselves and should be valued in all people.  Children need to be taught anatomically correct language and accurate scientific information regarding pregnancy.  Children should also be taught how to correctly use condoms and birth control, and told (*not taught because there isn't anything to teach besides one sentence) that the only way to 100% prevent unwanted or unplanned pregnancy is to practice abstinence.  I believe condoms and birth control should be used but that we need to break the myth that they are 100% effective.  Speaking from experience, I have a friend with three children who became pregnant with two of her children while she was on birth control, not knowing that their effectiveness decreases when taking other prescription drugs.

Second, we would like to empower young men and women to communicate their sexual wishes, or as I like to call it, teaching girls how to say "No means no."  This also means making females aware of situations that increase vulnerability that can lead to unwanted sexual contact or rape such as alcohol and or drug consumption, peer pressure, or being alone or isolated from peers.  This area also includes teaching young men what constitutes consensual sex versus what they are seeing in the media.  It also means viewing females as equals in terms of wants and desires, relating to the previous blog post about the misrepresentation of women.

The third and final area is dealing with unwanted or unplanned pregnancies in a way that fosters the female's mental health and physical health.  Domestic adoptions can be made more accessible (though I know little on this topic) and clinics that offer prenatal care can also offer free counseling services and access to networks. Young pregnant women can be partnered up with a mentor who can offer them advice on child-rearing and realistically discuss finances and family involvement.  Regardless of what young women decide, they need to know that we are a country that takes care of each other and that
their child's life is one of value.

In conclusion, this is not just a women's issue.  It is political, social, community based and media influenced.  A recent article in the New York Times (Feb. 17, 2012) by Jason Deparle and Sabrina Tavernise stated that 52% of babies born today in this country to women under 30 are to single women.  The study also cites major racial and educational imbalances related to this number.  As a nation, we need to stop passing the blame and start educating and taking action to help one another.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Deanna is a an early childhood educator with a degree in Communication from Temple University and a Masters in Education from Arcadia University.  She lives in Ardmore, PA.  For more information, please feel free to contact us at hello@womenscollaborativecircle.org and we will pass along your interests, thoughts and ideas to Deanna and her fiance Brian! 

Speaking Their Voices - Women and Girls of Beit Shemesh

Beit Shemesh is a neighborhood of approximately 80,000 in Jerusalem, Israel. It is home to an ultra-Orthodox sect of Jewish people, along with many other residents. With an increase of immigrants, especially of American expatriates, there are rising tensions between the ultra Orthodox and other Orthodox residents. Most recently, an uproar began over the establishment of a new national religious school for girls, Orot Banot. Upon the opening of Orot Banot, there were violent protests from the most ultra-Orthodox men who feel the students don't abide by the special extra stringent rules of dress and lifestyle espoused by the ultra-Orthodox community.  Many of these girls, as young as 7 years old, have been harassed, cursed at, spat on, and have had rocks thrown at them all in the name of what? God, real estate, "self-preservation"? This is mind boggling! Check out the video below.



Despite (and perhaps because of) these horrific offenses, women and girls in Beit Shemesh are speaking out! Their voices will not be extinguished. Anti-extremist rallies have also been held and hopefully will continue - if nothing else then to protect the right of our girls to live in a safe, violence-free world.

La Puerta Abierta - The Open Door: Support Their Campaign!

Dear friends,

Please check out the link below to learn about our most recent effort to raise much-needed funds for ICFamWell's local initiative- La Puerta Abierta/The Open Door.   Time is running out-- please consider your support!

We have been training local, bilingual practitioners to provide pro-bono individual and family counseling services for the Latino immigrant community of the Delaware Valley, particularly those facing language, legal and economic barriers to service. Most recently, we launched a Youth Mentorship Initiative that provides therapeutic support to younger, undocumented youth who do not have access to services elsewhere, because of their status. All training and services are free, as we are an entirely volunteer-driven organization.

For more information visit our Indiegogo campaign page HERE!

                                            

Please consider your support- in any amount. All donations are appreciated  and bring us closer to our goal!. Even if you can't make a financial contribution, please spread the word to your friends and family. If you have a facebook account, please post and "like" us on facebook,and/or post a comment on our Indiegogo site.  It all counts!! 

Thank you so much for your consideration.
                             

La Puerta Abierta

Professor X and the Half Breed - Half Breed Haven

Magneto holds his hand up and with all his might, attempting to bend the metallic water tower he sees in the distance. As he furrows his brow, he thinks about the sadness and anger that fuels him, about how different he is from the rest of the world.

Professor X can see the future, his telepathic powers helping to save lives and cities. Like Magneto, he feels out of place, but there is this powerful emotion that rings inside his head, telling him Belong! Belong!

Last weekend after meeting these two X Men for the first time (yes, I know I am many decades late…) I had to ask:

What does the half breed do with his or her pain?

The X-Men, of Marvel Comic fame, present two courses of action for all of us half breeds.

Conform (to society, blend in and hide our superpowers) or Separate (and celebrate our difference even if it means a life of eternal isolation)?

In the few months since I began my blog, Half Breed Haven, I have pondered this question trying to understand both what a half breed is, (Is it someone who is of mixed race or religion? Is it anyone who feels out of place? ) and what influences a half breed’s decision-making process around the question posed by the X Men- Conform or Separate?

At times I am Magneto, angrily crushing the skulls of those who don’t except me and then there are moments when I am Professor X, eager to be considered an honored member of the place where I am.

I caught myself acting like Magneto this week when I couldn’t pronounce a word with the right Hebrew accent and I said to my staff, “You know what I mean, I can’t say it in your accent” separating myself from everyone in the room. The looked at me quizzically, perhaps not understanding why I was isolating myself from them.

Happily there are also times when I feel like I really belong, like that email I got from my boss a few days ago telling me how eloquent I am in Hebrew and how I can’t use the “new immigrant” ticket anymore to differentiate myself from the people around me.

Unlike Magneto and Professor X, more often than not, my reactions to feeling out of place are unconscious and reactive. My out of place-ness does not dictate everything I do, but it is always there, hovering above my soul like a humming bird, flitting around in and out of sight, reminding me that I am loved when I feel like a wall flower and kicking me in the butt when I am feeling powerful, part of the group. I am a half and half breed- I have the fury of the outcast Magneto and the determination to belong of Professor X.

I guess we are all half and half -breed- We are at once like Magneto and Professor X, toying with these alternate states of belonging and loneliness, forever searching for a place that makes us feel normal, whatever that is…

WCC guest post contributor Tamar Zaken is a social worker, informal educator and writer who lives in Jerusalem. She is the Director of Volunteer Service Learning at Memizrach Shemesh- the Center for Jewish Social Activism  in Israel. She started halfbreedhaven.com, a blog about mixed ethnic/racial identity, in order to explore her Kurdish/Hungarian/Jewish/American/Israeli identities, and to create a place for other halfbreeds (however they may define themselves...) to discuss, deliberate, enjoy and celebrate their halfbreed heritage.

Occupy Wall Street With Your Voice!

Mic check? Mic check! On the Women's Collaborative Circle Facebook page I recently posted resources for people to learn about the uprisings on Wall Street in New York City and spreading to other cities nationwide.

To learn more check out Occupy Wall Street and We are the 99% and make your voice heard!

Michelle Bachmann on Our Girls' Healthcare - Take a Stand!

Art Caplan and DSW students at the School of Social Policy and Practice

I am privileged have been in class yesterday with famed bioethicist Arthur Caplan.  His jovial nature by no means masks or underplays his steadfast commitment to medical ethics.  Case in point, Caplan this week took on a candidate for the GOP nomination for president, Michelle Bachmann.  She very irresponsibly and ignorantly misspoke about the side effects of the HPV vaccine Gardasil.  Bachmann stated as reported on the Iowa Caucuses website that "she met a woman whose daughter suffered mental retardation as a result of the vaccine... [t]here are very dangerous consequences."

Beyond the absolute absurdity of her statements which hold no medical or scientific accuracy, she is doing great harm to girls and young women nationally! Bachmann, through fear, is potentially taking away a powerful tool that could be of great benefit to girls. Take a look at this video!

How can we help in this situation?  We need more individuals, groups and community organizations to not let politicians, people of power and women to use reckless political tactics! Here are the facts:

1. There have been no reported major side effects such as "mental retardation" or death from the HPV vaccine.
2. You can not acquire mental retardation as a side effect!
3. 40 years ago cervical cancer used to be the leading cause of cancer related death among women.  
4.  Today protective measures such as the Pap test (or Pap smear) which screens for cervical cancer greatly reduces the risk of death.
5. Get tested annually!
6. HPV - the human papilloma virus - is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) where certain strands of the virus cause cancer.
7. Though abstinence is one way to protect yourself from a STD like HPV, it may (unfortunately) not always be in your control or ways in which you chose to engage in sexual relations change. Protect yourself.
8. Education is key to prevention! Know the facts and share them!
9. Speak out against misinformation and abuse of power such as Bachmann's or any other so called "figure of authority."
10. Share this post and others like it widely on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites!

A Tribute to 9/11/01 - My Social Work Perspective

     I was 23 years old the morning I got on the 1/9 subway line from 235^th street station down to Christopher Street and 7^th Avenue. I was basking in the calm and quiet that is the West Village in early morning beginning anew and recovering from the rhythms of the previous night. Small Ecuadorian men were washing and sweeping the sidewalks clean, keeping up appearances outside hot spots such as Babbo Ristorante and charming four-story brownstone residences where wealth resides and poverty sleeps overnight on its stoop.  The contrast is striking; it always is in major urban playgrounds. The lines of vulnerability are not often blurred and everyone knows their place. 5^th avenue and Washington Square north was no exception; until that morning. That morning, everyone was vulnerable.

     September 11, 2001 was my first day of classes as a transfer student at New York University’s then Ehrenkranz School of Social Work (NYU).  Walking to class that morning I was not consciously thinking how entering the academic and professional world of social work would change my life or how the sense of a plane “flying low” would change thousands of people’s lives.  Moments later on the corner of Washington Square North and University place word instantaneously spread that a plane was indeed flying low and hit a building –the world trade center. 

     In disbelief, a group of us rushed to 5^th avenue and Washington Square North and at the crossroads of extreme wealth, sickening poverty, starving artists, underserved domestic workers caring for others’ children, inquiring academics, and international passersby – in that moment, the portrait so often photographed through the outline of the arches with its iconoclastic shapes and romantic visions were awash. Beyond the historical Washington Square Arch I stared in disbelief at an unthinkable an unimaginable sight. A sight so unimaginable my brain could not comprehend the unfolding atrocity that would forever make its mark on our individual and collective histories. Amid the confusion, noise, chaos and unfolding reality that the United States was under attack by terrorists, I clearly heard our school’s faculty members mutter to one another, “this is going to change our profession forever.”  Those words felt profound, daring and prophetic, but at that time I couldn’t imagine how. 

     I have held onto those seemingly prophetic words for nearly a decade, though throughout my academic and clinical career I have only seen glimpses of how I expected those words to manifest.  In obvious and direct ways the NYU social work faculty as well as neighboring schools and community social workers participated in provided crisis counseling, assisting with victim services and relief efforts of various sorts.  There was no shortage of volunteerism, and I was aware of our faculty and the social work community at large working tirelessly on behalf of the victims, survivors, City of New York and our country.  The obvious applications of social work was apparent in providing trauma based therapeutic interventions, concrete social services such as navigating survivor funds in years to come and assistance with benefits, shelter, clothing, food, etc., and shortly in subsequent years research and literature supporting our knowledge base of trauma work.  However, I had a sense that this attack, this literal crash would shift perspectives and consciousness as to the environment and global world that we are now living and working in as social workers.