Your IUD questions answered

Left of lipstick: Crisis pregnancy centers are not a legitimate alternative to abortion clinics

This is not the column I planned to write. Ignited by the September 16 Republican primary debate, my discarded column is full of quips about Donald Trump’s misogynistic, conservative demonization of Planned Parenthood. That column, maturely titled “scary ass republicans,” will remain tucked away in an interior file in my computer. It did not raise the quality of discourse about this issue—which, by the way, is reproduction.
What drew my attention to this subject in particular was Jeb Bush’s boast that not only had he directed funding away from Planned Parenthood, but that he had directed it toward crisis pregnancy centers.
The first crisis pregnancy center I was aware of was CareNet of Midcoast Maine. I first noticed it when it was located on Union Street and I made frequent morning-after treks home from Red Brick House (CareNet is now located at 7 Cumberland Street).
“Is this a clinic?” I wondered. “I guess it’s a clinic, it looks like a clinic.”
This is what they wanted me to think, and it is not true.
In short, crisis pregnancy centers—or the other CPC, as I like to call them—are non-profit ministries designed to mimic sexual health clinics. According to a report issued by the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) Pro-Choice America, CareNet is one of the largest crisis pregnancy center networks in the United States. CareNet of Midcoast Maine is our local branch.
I bopped around CareNet’s website on Monday night. There are the expected tabs—symptoms, services, abortion, contact, give—but the symptoms described are only for pregnancy, not for STIs, and the services offered are pregnancy testing, and counseling, not contraception. I compared the layout with Planned Parenthood’s website. Both feature clear-skinned models half smiling in stock photos and quick appointment buttons. It was an obvious imitation.
One of the services crisis pregnancy centers offer is options counseling for people coping with unplanned pregnancies. However, there is one option conspicuously not on the table: abortion. Though it is listed as a “topic” of discussion, their position is unilateral. The homepage of the national CareNet website recruits volunteers with this message:
“Stand Up. Speak Out. Be heard! You can defend unborn children in jeopardy by reaching parents considering abortion today with a message of truth and hope through Pregnancy Decision Line and our network of over 1,100 affiliated pregnancy centers.”
In the top right corner there is a ticker counting “lives saved,” or women who came to CareNet considering abortion and, because of their counseling and ministry, chose to continue with the pregnancy.
Tuesday morning, I decided to pay CareNet a visit in person, and something happened that I wasn’t prepared for: they were so incredibly nice.
I was greeted by three women, forties to sixties I’d guess, sitting in the waiting room chatting. They smiled at me and asked if I was there for a test.
“No,” I said, “I’m just here to ask a few questions about what kinds of services you offer.”
They were enthusiastic and eager to tell me about their operation, not guarded or suspicious. They offer free hormonal pregnancy tests, the kind you pee on and can buy at Rite Aid. “Nothing fancy.”
They also offer a service I didn’t know about: free parenting classes. By taking them you earn “mommy dollars” which can be spent at the CareNet baby boutique. They were particularly proud of the boutique—it’s a small room filled with shiny toys, soft blankets and sturdy baby clothes.
My tour guide, a warm and friendly church lady, told me their unofficial motto, “We give everyone who comes through this door a cold glass of water,” (metaphorical water, though I’m sure they’d give you real water too) “we know we can’t solve all the problems, but we’re trying to do like Jesus did, to meet people where they are and help where we can.”
She meant it, undoubtedly. She radiated sincerity and goodwill. And though I think she was drawn there to help, I am not pardoning crisis pregnancy centers. I left CareNet feeling the way I do about missionary work: there are good people on the ground offering genuine help, but with constricting ideological strings attached. It is charity, but it is also a means of control.
It is no secret that the United States has negligible systemic support for parents—there is no paid maternity leave, much less family or parental leave; no universal childcare, much less parenting classes or subsidized baby supplies. We are pitifully behind the rest of the developed world in this area, and much of the developing world. The United States’ anti-maternalism has been the subject of academic feminist research for decades. See, for example, the work of Sonya Michel, Theda Skocpol, and Seth Koven.
This is why CareNet works. The neoliberal state does not support reproduction; it leaves that to the market. There is a gap in parental services, one that crisis pregnancy centers are exploiting.
Crisis pregnancy centers do provide real services, but it is only a tactic, not the goal. It is well researched and thoroughly documented that crisis pregnancy centers are an arm of the anti-choice movement whose goal is to revoke the right to abortion access. This is not a secret, on the national CareNet home page, the slide after “Speak up. Speak out,” asks viewers to, “join our fight to end abortion.”
NARAL Pro-Choice America released a report on the topic at the beginning of this year. It contends that the threat of crisis pregnancy centers is not just that they are against abortion—we have free speech protection—but that they “pose as comprehensive health-care clinics,” to “restrict, control, and manipulate the information women facing unplanned pregnancies receive.”
If there were widely accessible parenting classes or subsidized baby supplies, would CareNet be able to draw people in? I doubt it.
As Katha Pollitt noted in her talk last Thursday, abortion should be safe, legal and accessible. But it is not the only thing. Parental support should be accessible, baby supplies should be accessible, childcare should be accessible. A strong state with strong maternal support services would pull the rug out from underneath crisis pregnancy centers. Real help with pregnancy does not come in a well-intentioned box tied with an ideological bow.

Left of lipstick: The DFMO is a symptom of patriarchy

Have you ever thought about what exactly a dance floor make out (DFMO) is? Well, I hadn’t until a few weeks ago, because every time I thought about it sober in the light of day, it made me feel yucky. But now I have thought about it, beautiful readers, and I hope you’ll stick with me. I think the DFMO is a microcosm of a traditional marriage narrative, and thus, embedded in patriarchy.
Let’s be anthropological about this. The DFMO develops in six discrete steps:
1. A circle of women dance.
2. A man (“guy”) approaches one of the women from behind.
3. Depending on his civility and level of intoxication, he will either get her attention and ask her to dance or grab her hips without verbal communication. They will “grind” (dancing which involves rubbing the woman’s butt against the man’s crotch to the rhythm of the music).
4. In the latter case, the woman is often unsure who her partner is, as it is dark, loud, she is drunk and she has her back to him. If this happens, she will consult her friends, whom she is facing and who can see the face of her partner. She communicates with them either by raising an inquisitive eyebrow or signaling thumbs up/thumbs down. If the friends disapprove of the partner, they will give her a thumbs down or simply pull her away. If they approve, they’ll give a thumbs up or a permissive shrug.
5. The crucial moment comes after several minutes of peer-sanctioned grinding. The male, still holding his partner’s hips, will twist her toward him (requiring her to literally turn her back to her friends) and they will proceed to make out.
6. At the end of the song the couple will likely part, or they may leave the party together for the privacy of one their bedrooms.
Two things about this ritual stand out: its deep heteronormativity and the fact that it's so overtly public.
With the possible exception of parties hosted by and for the queer community, DFMOs are dominated by straight couples, with each member performing a clearly prescribed gender role. Men are in the apparently active role, controlling the progression at every stage—selecting a partner, issuing the invitation to dance, deciding when to transition from dancing to making out and suggesting to leave the party together.
This does not mean women are mere pawns. They exert agency, albeit within the confines of a patriarchal system. Women can signify interest in a dance floor partner by making repeated eye contact with him or accidently-on-purpose brushing against him. These actions are small enough to go unnoticed by a casual observer, but significant enough that they could precipitate a DFMO where one might not otherwise happen.
DFMOs follow an intuitive social script even for the uninitiated because they resemble a stale though undeniably appealing narrative: the heterosexual romance.
It is the marriage arc. Man sees woman, initiates contact, contact is reciprocated, acquaintance is made and both participants renounce their other non-romantic relationships and elevate the romantic one. You can see this when the woman turns her back on her friends, with whom she came to the party, to make out with a man whose name she may not even know. However, the friends do not see this as a betrayal. They helped her get to this capitulation by signaling thumbs up or slightly shifting their arrangement so that the woman could be near enough to her future partner to accidentally-on-purpose brush against him. It is not unlike the many pre-wedding bridal celebrations—the bachelorette party, the wedding shower—they are all about women celebrating one of their number moving from their ranks to romantic bliss.
The heterosexual romantic narrative is distilled, perhaps, in its purest form in children’s stories. Recall the scene at the end of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” in which Ariel weds Prince Eric on the ship and sails away from every other meaningful relationship in her life—her father, her sisters, Sebastian the crab guardian, Flounder her fish friend. It is not that different from leaving a party full of close friends and admired acquaintances to fumble with the buttons on a barely known lover’s shirt.
The obvious difference between the DFMO and the traditional heterosexual marriage arc is that the DFMO is quick and nonbinding while marriage is long-term and tightly binding. The DFMO heterosexual romance happens on a micro-scale because of the liberating forces of darkness, alcohol, contraception and alleged sexual emancipation (though the extreme heteronormativity seems less than emancipated).
So let’s just remember, patriarchy is bad for everyone. Dance floor make outs are embedded in patriarchy. Might as well just go to Super Snack.

Left of lipstick

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Julia Mead

Columnist

October 21, 2015

The best decision I made my first year of college was getting a piece of plastic shoved up my vagina.

I was the first person I knew to get an intrauterine device (IUD), a form of long acting reversible contraception. I had been on the pill since I was 16 and I was terrible at it. For those of you who have never been on the pill, the tricky thing is that with most kinds you have to take it at the same time every day for it to be effective, and effectiveness really matters.

I tried all the tricks. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to take it, I carried my little cardboard pack around in my backpack. I tried taking it in the morning and I tried at night, but my schedule was so constantly variable that I regularly slipped up and took it too late or skipped days all together. Sometimes I’d forget to call in my prescription refill to Hannaford until it was too late.

I flipped out. I took Plan B. I tried to find a place to buy a pregnancy test in the middle of the night in Brunswick so I could quiet my baby-anxious mind and sleep (there are none).

I was the poster child for “user error.”

Going home for spring break was eye-opening. I remembered that I had not always lived a hectic life where some days I wake up at 7 a.m. and some days I wake up at noon. My user error wasn’t because I was a bad, irresponsible person; it was because I was a college student.

I needed to change my method of birth control, not my habits.

I started by scouring the Planned Parenthood website, where there is a helpful overview of all the types of contraceptives available. My criteria were simple, I needed something easy and effective. I was curious about IUDs because they seemed to fit my criteria more closely than any other method; they have a tiny failure rate and are effective for five years with no maintenance.

But getting an IUD also involved going to a doctor to get a small piece of plastic stuck up my vaginal canal, wiggled through my dilated cervix and inserted into my uterus. And that didn’t sound fun.

So I turned to Physician Assistant Julie Gray of the health center to get the guidance of a medical professional. Will it hurt? I asked her. How will I know if it comes out? Isn’t it just for women who have already had children? Will it wreck my uterus so I can’t have children in 10 years? Her answers: no, trust me you will, no and no.

Convinced and heartened, I called the Planned Parenthood in Topsham to make an appointment. The whole ordeal was quick and professional. Then I went home, put on sweatpants, took an ibuprofen and went to bed early. There was some intense cramping that night, but it went away the next day.

Friends often ask me questions:

Q: Can you feel it?

A: Nope, not even a little bit.

Q: What about the strings? Can you feel those? (There are fishing wire-like strings that extend down to aid removal).

A: When I first got it I could more easily. Now the ends of them have curled up and I’ve really got to go digging to feel them.

Q: What about your partners? Can they feel the IUD?

A: No, god bless the cervix. I had one partner who one time said he could feel the strings during intercourse. This was soon after I had it put in.

Q: Did it hurt to get it put in?

A: It was a little uncomfortable.

Q: Do you still have periods?

A: No and it’s great.

Q: If you don’t have periods, how will you know if you’re pregnant?

A: IUDs are damn near 100% effective. I’m not worried about it.

Q: How much did it cost?

A: I have Bowdoin health insurance, which covered the full cost. It was free for me.

Notably, everybody is different, and contraceptive needs vary wildly. Do your research, talk to your doctor. I’m not telling you all to go out and get IUDs tomorrow, but I am suggesting you think about it as a serious option.

Controlling fertility is hard. People have come up with some wackadoodle stuff to keep from having babies in the past (tying weasel testicles to their legs, shoving crocodile poop up their vaginas prior to intercourse, taking shots of mercury after intercourse). Unpleasant and ineffective! We twenty-first century, insured, American college students have the good fortune to have an array of ever easier, and ever more effective options, at our disposal.

By getting an IUD, I was finally able to control my fertility, and the less energy I spend controlling my fertility, the more time I have for other things, like writing columns about controlling fertility.

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