Destiny Does Dublin

I told my husband he couldn’t come to any of my talks while we were in Ireland. Nothing against him, I just hate when people I know see me do anything like that.

As a child I used to beg my mom not to come to my volleyball games, it was just too much pressure. Failing in front of strangers is one thing... but possibly failing in front people I know and love? Yeah, no thanks.

But then, on our last night in Dublin, I had to speak at Maynooth University which was a whole train ride away. It felt wrong to just leave my husband at the hotel all alone, so I told him he could tag along if he wanted. He asked if I was sure and I said yes.

He sat off to the side and even earned me some extra laughs when I joked about wanting to smash the patriarchy but still loving men... specifically, that one over there. Having him there actually made me feel sorta empowered, like, even if I did fail at least there would be one friendly face in the audience that loved me anyway.

My talk went really really well. Actually, it might’ve been one of my best yet.

Afterwards, he kept going on and on about how great he thought I did. “Are they all like that?” he asked, “Yeah, totally... all of them... every single one.” 😂

We stopped for some take-out on the way back to the hotel and as we walked along the old cobblestone streets of Dublin we talked about how amazing it would be to do this all the time. Just travel the world spreading the message of prolife feminism. Together. As a team.

When women are empowered, men are empowered. Families are stronger and our communities flourish. As we talk about on here so often, support makes all the difference in the world for so many women. Myself included, turns out.

I am far from perfect. I fail at being a wife constantly, and sometimes majorly. And I have to ask for forgiveness often. But at the end of the day, my husband Abrahm will never be uninvited from one of my talks again. Because as I found out, I’m better when he’s by my side.

I’m so excited to see what the future has in store for the two of us, our family, and New Wave Feminists. I think some big things are happening, y’all. 

💕

Empowering Exploitation

Originally published by the Dallas Morning News

“She looked so much like my daughter…”

That was the thought that kept rolling around in my head as I drove to work after an early morning coffee with a friend. We were sitting outside of a Starbucks in North Dallas, enjoying the beautiful fall weather and brainstorming about ways we could reach more women globally through our activism, when I saw this young girl walking through the parking lot.

She was probably all of 5-feet tall, with a thin frame and light brown wavy hair cascading passed her shoulders... just like my daughters. Her legs were tan but not in the fashionable way you’d expect in an affluent Texas city. As she walked her shorts crept up and down on her thighs, exposing a very defined tan line which was a deep red around the edges. I couldn’t tell if it was the beginning stages of a burn or the end of the healing process, either way she’d clearly been standing out in the sun for quite some time wearing those shorts. My daughter has a similar pair which she usually throws on over her leotard on the way to gymnastics practice.

The young woman had beads of sweat covering her face, but given the cool morning breeze, I knew it wasn’t from the weather. Her eyes were darting back and forth as she neared our table. I’d stopped talking to my friend mid-sentence and with everything in my being tried to mentally will the girl to come over to us. My silent prayer was that once she got closer she might pause long enough that we could offer her a cup of coffee, or something to eat. Anything to be able to talk to her. After all, here we were trying to think of ways to "love women better" around the world, all the while she was being “loved” the wrong way in our own backyard.

A few months back I had stopped at the gas station across the street from that Starbucks. I noticed a giant fishbowl of 25 cent condoms near the register. It seemed so odd to me, and when I made a comment to the clerk he responded with, “Yeah, they are big sellers here.”

“Here?” What did that mean?

It didn’t take long for me to start noticing young women standing near the lights at this particular intersection every time I passed. Often they’d be accompanied by a male. Unlike the usual panhandlers in that area they were never holding signs though. Just standing. Quietly advertising.

So when this girl, who was probably only 6 or 7 years older than my 10-year-old daughter, blew passed us without pausing as she headed towards the run down hotel behind Starbucks, my heart broke. I knew why her legs were so sun-kissed. I knew why her face was so damp. I wondered if she was ever in gymnastics. I wondered if her mother ever had to wrangle that beautiful wavy hair into a top bun before practice. How did she get here? She doesn’t belong here. No woman belongs here.

Women are being exploited on street corners and sold in back pages across the country because we claim sex work is all about agency and it can even be empowering. Perhaps to a select few, but let's not kid ourselves, those few are privileged. The ones who are truly choosing to sell themselves like property with clear and sober minds are not the norm. The average woman, or girl in many cases, is escaping abuse and pursuing addiction. She is stuck in a vicious cycle that makes her more vulnerable than any child should ever be. And she need compassion, not criminal charges. She needs rehabilitation, not a rap sheet.

In just a few years that girl’s young face will have aged by decades. She will no longer look like my daughter, but she will still be someone’s child. 

She will still be someone. 

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Post by Destiny

Leading By Example...

"Today while I was on campus with the ‪#‎WeDontNeedPP‬ Display, I met a student who told me she is scheduled to have an abortion on Saturday. We talked for awhile, and I asked why she decided to have an abortion. She told me she doesn't think she can finish school and be a mother. After sharing with her the myriad of resources available to pregnant and parenting students on campus, I looked her in the eyes and said, "You are strong enough to be a mother and finish your education, don't let anyone tell you that you aren't..." She burst into tears and thanked me for talking with her. I gave her my contact info and told her to let me know if there is anything that she needs." -Lisa Atkins

THAT is pro-life feminism.

Raising An Activist

Last week in DC my daughter Eiffel had a mini breakdown. It wasn't totally unexpected as I was fully prepared for her to be overwhelmed by the amount of abortion talk she'd overhear during the March for Life and surrounding events.

There are giant blown-up pictures of abortion victims along the march route that I knew she'd see. Plus, I figured the counter-demonstration we'd face in front of the Supreme Court with women and men in bloody pants screaming "God does not exist!" would be a new experience for my 9-year-old as well, and I was fully prepared for all of these talks. What caught me off guard however was what ultimately caught her off guard.

She handled the march like a champ, but that night back at our hotel, all hunkered down for the blizzard, we decided to hang out with some friends from Ireland in the lobby whom we'd had dinner with the previous evening. They're a jolly bunch. They drink too much and smoke too much, but also they say "feck" a lot.  According to them this is a word that's less offensive in Ireland than "crap." It's NOT the f-word although it sounds similar, and for us it's probably akin to "freaking." To Eiffel though it was a BAD WORD.

As we were headed down to hang out with them she stopped me. She grabbed my arm and when I looked back I noticed her eyes were filled with tears. She'd been such a trooper the whole trip that this surprised me but I figured something from earlier in the day must've finally gotten to her. I asked her what was wrong and that's when she told me, "I don't want to hang out with them because they're always cussing."

I love her heart. I love her heart so much.

To her their words were inappropriate and offensive. She's always been bothered by swear words in movies and songs, even when her siblings weren't, because she's my rule follower... only I never made a rule against “cuss words.”

I know most good moms do, but to me they're just dumb words. It's a sequence of sounds coming out of someone’s face and most of the time they mean nothing on their own and are only added for extra emphasis. I tried to explain this to her, but she just kept telling me that these words made her feel bad; that they hurt her.

I totally got what she was saying, but at the same time I felt the need to challenge that.

They're words. They're not sticks and stones. Words should never be able to have that much power over us. At least not arbitrary words like "feck" or hell, even "f*ck." As a nation we've become far too comfortable with taking offense at sounds coming out of people's faces. We claim that words hurt us, but I'm sorry, that's simply not true. Every word that supposedly "offends" us we've heard before... which is how we know it's offensive in the first place. It's not a new combination of sounds being introduced to the airwaves that is somehow magically able to assault our eardrums like no word before it.

And if any word should ever really *hurt* us, it should be "abortion." I asked Eiffel when was the last time that THAT word made her cry.

She kept trying to tell me that the other words she heard bothered her more even though she didn't know why and I said that while I understood, the meaning behind words is what really matters... and that's when she finally asked me.

She asked me what abortion really was.

She'd seen the pictures and grasped the general concept, but being the daughter of a prolife activist she'd somehow missed out on the nitty gritty.

We sat on the hotel room floor and I told her. I walked her through the procedures and I explained the different techniques used for different gestational ages. I told her how so many women who choose abortion simply feel that they have no other choice and that is why I, personally, am prolife.

The tears returned to her eyes but this time she couldn't blink them away. As they streamed down her face she looked up and asked me, "How can they let this happen?" And in that moment we had the same heart, because that's a question I ask myself every day.

She finally understood the difference between bad words and bad actions, and the fact that sometimes you can even put pretty words with bad actions. You can kill a child and call it "reproductive justice." You can force a woman into an abortion clinic while saying it's a "woman's right" and "liberating." You can stop someone else's heart from beating while somehow claiming it's still just a part of your body.

Last week my daughter learned a lesson that so many of us are constantly trying to teach our children: Actions speak louder than words.

Last week my daughter became an activist.

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Post By Destiny

(Photo By Robin Marty)

Why Are So Many Black Babies Dying?

There aren't many things in life that really upset me. 

Ever since the doctors said that my husband and I would never have children naturally - you know, old school, the way we've been making babies since Adam and Eve - and I proceeded to get pregnant naturally (yep, intercourse) six months later. Ever since then I have been on this crazy road of learning more about women, childbirth, and babies in general. 

Before having my son I dove headfirst into researching my options about birth. Since then I have become a doula and childbirth educator. But it wasn't until spring of 2014 at the Southwest Birth Roundup when my path took a major turn. I listened intently to the incredible midwife Jennie Joseph toss out matter-of-fact statistics on infant and maternal mortality rates among African-Americans. These statistics brought me to a place of great grief. No longer was I just a doula and childbirth educator. In that moment I became an advocate. I wanted to shout from the mountaintops how completely wrong this was. And is.

Then I came home and I looked up more information about these phenomena that I had no clue about. I ended up falling down a rabbit hole of information that truly infuriated me.

This is some of what I learned (see footnotes for sources):

African-American women are three to four times more likely to be harmed or die during birth.

African-American babies are two to three times more likely to be born too soon, too small, or too sick to survive.

The African-American population in the USA is 13.2% (as of 2014). The white population in the USA 77.7%.

However, the African-American abortion percentage is 37%. The white abortion percentage is 34%.

The infant mortality rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) is 12.2 for African-Americans, and 5.3 for non-Hispanic whites, and 5.4 for Hispanics.

Get more info by clicking this link, and see that the rates stay basically the same across all states in the U.S.

The maternal mortality rate is similarly disproportionate. Looking at deaths per 100,000 live births, the number of African-Americans in the U.S. is 42.8, for whites 12.5, and for other races 17.3.

My reaction to this is: what in the actual hell? Why is there not national outrage over these figures and why did I not know this? I haven't even begun writing about Planned Parenthood. Are you ready?

Planned Parenthood was founded by proud racist and eugenicist Margaret Sanger. If you look her up, you'll find it pretty incredible what she was capable of doing while others bowed at her feet like she was God. She even had black ministers involved to back up her "service," but it was all based in pure deceit. If the devil could dress up like someone and fool people to believe that what he was doing were good, he would dress up like Margaret Sanger.

Here is a nice little quote from Ms. Sanger. "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Planned Parenthood does many good things but... (Yes, there will always be a big ol' "BUT: when it comes to PP.)

But... they kill babies. Not only do they kill babies or "clumps of tissue" or "products of conception" (as they would like to put it), they strategically set up shop in lower economic communities, all in the name of providing "services" for those in need.

The major problem with this is that although African-American women make up a small percentage of the population of the U.S, these women make up nearly the largest percentage of women getting abortions. I had someone argue that African-American women make up the largest percentage of abortions because they are the minority. Please someone enlighten me, educate me on how this makes a lick of sense.

In 2011 there were 76,251 abortions in NYC. Of these aborted babies, 9,950 were white, which is 12.5% of the total. A whopping 35,188 were black babies, which is 46.1% of the total. 

Did you know that in 2012 there were more black babies aborted in NYC than born? There were 31,328 babies aborted in the city that year, versus 24,758 allowed to live.

I write this not as a black woman with an agenda against the evil white man. Please, if anyone knows me, I am the furthest thing from a racist, and if you think that I'm racist because I'm writing about the disparities experienced by black women and babies you might want to look at yourself for a second. This is not about you. This is about life. When it comes to the right to life there should be no color divide - but obviously there is.

I am writing this because to me the facts are so obviously sickening that this needs to be a topic of discussion amongst everyone. 

Something needs to be done. I'm tired of not seeing many faces of color in support of life... LIFE! I'm tired of these statistics being brushed off as if they are unimportant. Most do not know them. I did not know most of this until last year.

I'm also very tired of the whole argument: "Well, they had a choice!" As if black women have so very little regard for the life of their children that there could not possibly be any other factors that contribute to it. Let us not forget that I included statistics of infant and MATERNAL mortality rates here. 

Something bigger is going on and it is going to take more than a handful of white people standing up for life. It is going to take people opening their eyes to the immorality that has overtaken hearts and blinded us to this mass genocide. It is going to take more than a couple of black people writing a blog. It is going to take people of color speaking out and standing up for what is right!

I want people to start asking questions and taking action. I want people to stop with their Facebook posts about how abortion is so bad and start actually doing something. Give your money to organizations that provide free or low-cost care to women, that do not support abortion. Adopt! 

Please, please consider adopting. Volunteer to help support teen moms and moms that are going at motherhood alone, counsel women who are struggling with the decision whether to abort or not. Get involved on the sidewalks in front of these clinics, offering women life affirming, non-violent choices.

We need compassionate, empathetic people to get out from behind their computer screens and actually do something.

We especially need to start empowering each other in this fight for life. Planned Parenthood has not empowered women. They have stripped from millions of women a natural power we as women are only capable of possessing and that is carrying and caring for our children. 

I was asked to pour out my heart and that is what I've done. Now, let's all do something together.

______________

The following are sources for information contained in this blog post. New Wave Feminists always encourages readers to read and research further.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation - Infant Mortality Rate (Deaths per 1,000 Live Births) by Race/Ethnicity

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Pregnancy-Related Death

United States Census - Population Quick Facts

Bureau of Vital Statistics New York City - Pregnancy Outcomes 2012

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Post by Cessilye Smith

Confessions of a Reformed Baby Saver

I always knew I should've been aborted. No part of my existence made sense. My mother was 19, and abortion had already been legal for ten years. She was living on her own in a liberal college town while attending the University of Texas, and the worst part? My grandparents were ministers.

In order for her to “have me” she would have to drop out of school, move back home to Dallas and—perhaps most horrifyingly—let her parents know she wasn’t a virgin.

She did all of those things. She gave me life and because of that she is and always will be my hero. Because of that I also always felt very close to the unborn. For the first decade and a half of my life I was outspokenly anti-abortion. If you wanted to defend it I’d shove a picture of an aborted fetus in your face without a second thought. To me these were my brother and sisters in crisis pregnancies being slaughtered thanks to an apathetic society. I wanted everyone to feel something, anything, about abortion. If you loved it, then fine. You loved murdering innocent children and I was going to let you know it.

Then, at 16, I became pregnant. I was terrified. I was having a baby in nine months and all I wanted to do was rip my stomach off of my body and die. I had let everyone down. If anybody knew better than to make this mistake it was me. Hadn’t I seen, hell, lived the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy?! It took my mother a decade to finally complete her degree. I watched her fall prey to men she should’ve never been with just to provide some sense of normalcy for me. In between classes, I celebrated my birthday at the restaurants where she waited tables. I. Knew. Better. How had I gotten myself into the very same predicament…?

I returned to school for my junior year with a big swollen belly teetering on my childlike frame. I’d waddle from class to class, deflecting whispers and dirty looks as I went. My now ex boyfriend wanted nothing to do with the whole thing and had transferred schools, so there were now rumors that he wasn’t even the father. I spent most of my lunch periods in the bathroom crying, partially because of hormones, but mostly because teenagers can be so very cruel. When I wasn’t broken I was angry. I walked the halls angry because it was the only defense mechanism I had.

That’s when it happened. I remember it like it was yesterday.

I’d known her since 7^th grade; we’d gone to the same middle school. She got boobs before the rest of us and was always smoking over in the woods behind the school. We weren’t friends really, but once you move to high school those acquaintances become like relatives you have no choice but to accept because there’s that familiarity which breeds camaraderie. I was on my way up the stairs when she stopped me...

“I was pregnant this summer too.”

It caught me off guard.

“Was?” The word rolled around in my head until it finally engaged. “She was pregnant… but she’s not now.”

“I had an abortion…” she continued. She kept talking but there was a rage now taking over my body. I can only describe it as that thing we all saw in cartoons growing up. The information hit my temporal cortex and everything caught on fire. Suddenly smoke was shooting out of my ears and a high-pitched train whistle was drowning out everything she was saying. Could she not tell obviously I was not cool with that option? Did she not see the looks? Hear the whispers? If I was okay with abortion wouldn’t I have had one myself to avoid this hell where I currently dwelt?!

I looked her in the eye and said the following, word for word:

“So you killed your baby? You’re a baby killer… and you’re proud of it?”

She spit a few choice profanities at me and I continued up the stairs, honestly feeling pretty pleased with myself. Funny how that happens when you’re mad. The rage builds up and finds a release valve through your mouth and for one minute you feel relieved. Then you realize what you’ve just done.

I wish I could say my regret came that quickly, but it did not. It wasn’t until later that afternoon that I was made aware of the impact of my words.

My mother had just gotten home and I couldn’t wait to recount the day’s events to her. Obviously she would be so proud, since she herself had been on this end of the “crisis”…a hormonal, hot mess.

As soon as I finished telling her what had happened her eyes turned sad. They weren’t full of the pride I’d anticipated. She was so ashamed of me.

“Maybe her next abortion will be in your honor,” she said.

Her words pierced my core and instantaneously transformed me. In that moment, with that one line, I saw so clearly what I’d done. I hadn’t related to her as a fellow female going through an incredibly difficult and heart-wrenching time. I’d attacked her as a former fetus who could’ve just as easily been aborted. The “baby saver” I was in that moment would guarantee the “woman in crisis” she was would never confide in me again.

My mother’s words that day softened my heart. I shed the anger and let it take its more vulnerable root form: fear. I decided to show others how scared I was, but let them know it was still possible to choose life amidst all the uncertainties because we females are so much stronger than we realize. I accepted my new identity as a girl who was in the shoes of every girl who was walking through the doors of that abortion clinic, and not the child in their womb. I was clearly on the other side now. I just had the support and information they didn’t. That’s all that separated us.

The universe has a funny way of giving us second chances and I’m almost always too lazy to be prepared when they come along. The very next day an almost identical situation happened. Another girl who I’d known for years but was never particularly close to came up to me in the lunchroom.

I was sitting at a long empty table reading a book by myself. It took me a moment to notice her standing there, but as I lowered my book the same words left her lips…

“I was pregnant this summer too… sucks.”

“Was… was… she used the same word…” my brain told me. Unfortunately I hadn’t given much thought to how I would handle this situation if it ever presented itself, but I knew my silence was coming off as a form of judgment of its own.

“Oh yeah,” I asked, “how far a long were you?”

She stared off for a minute, pretending to do the imaginary math. “Like, 12 weeks or something…”

“Twelve weeks… twelve weeks…” my head was buzzing with both appropriate and inappropriate responses and all I wanted to do was say something non-emotional, non-condemning. Facts maybe? But what facts did I have? Only those dumb babycenter.com fetal development ones I was getting emailed to me every other day.

“Twelve weeks… so that’s like eye lashes and fingernails, right?”

The second it exited the buzzing in my head and flew out of my mouth I realized what I’d just done.

I watched it sting her.

This conversation ended almost identical to the one the day prior, however there was a major change in me. I was not talking to her as a baby saver condemning her choice. I was speaking to her as a woman who had also been in that situation (was currently in that situation) and had vital information made available to me. There was no anger, only facts.

In years since I have tried to go beyond that. I don’t just want to offer women what I had as far as fetal development information… knowledge of which all women should have before they make a decision as significant as abortion. But I want to offer them the resources I was lucky enough to have as well.

There was never a fear of being kicked out of my home when I found out I was pregnant. My family was able to afford basic medical care for me and my child, and there would be diapers and nursery equipment in subsequent months if I chose to parent rather than place him for adoption.

So many women do not have these things. Basic facts and practical needs are what keep them from choosing life, but so is compassion.

They expect us to yell. They want us to, believe it or not.

I did.

I wanted someone to berate me… to tell me what a fool I was for ruining my life and dragging an innocent child into this mess. If someone would’ve tried to “baby save” my fetus while treating me like crap I would’ve been all over that because trust me, there’s not a name they could’ve thrown at me that I hadn’t already called myself.

But no one did. Instead they cried with me… not for me. They offered kindness and support and let me know I was still loved even when I felt so unlovable.

That’s when I went from a baby saver to an advocate for women, which often times saves them both.

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Post by Destiny