Being Amber Rhea

Yesterday I went to a Georgians for Choice meeting. I participated in the Walk for Women’s Lives two years ago, but this is the first time I’ve been to a GfC meeting. And, those women are awesome! I did a podcast interview with Paris Hatcher, the co-executive director, which will be posted sometime next week. She and Mia (the other co-executive director) are strong, smart, passionate, fun, hilarious women. Hell, all of the women who were at the meeting fit that description.

I think I managed to get them fired up about social media, and I might be working with them in the future to put some of the ideas we came up with into place on their soon-to-be-redesigned web site. In particular, Paris really liked the idea of incorporating Flickr. (I’m far too busy these days for pro bono freelance work, but the nice thing about Web 2.0 stuff is that most of it is so simple and user-friendly that it’s often just a matter of showing/telling someone what to do, and encouraging them to run with it.)

One thing that I really enjoyed was the emphasis GfC puts on intersectional analysis of social issues. They specifically frame their goals in terms of “reproductive justice,” rather than “reproductive rights.” But you’ll hear more about that in the forthcoming podcast.

All in all the meeting was productive and fun - and that’s not necessarily an easy thing to accomplish. I’ve been to plenty of volunteer organization meetings that are just tedious, and everyone is so dour - as if being passionate about a cause means you can’t have fun. I’m really glad I went to the meeting, and I’m looking forward to working more with GfC. It was a diverse group that felt free of judgment of other women. And it sure was nice to enjoy some good IRL feminism, after all the bizarre shit happening in certain corners of the feminist blogosphere lately. This is a huge part of what made me fall in love with feminism in the first place.

…is the Walk for Women’s Lives.

The following article is lifted straight from the AJC. But why should I make you click a link, and login, just to read it? So, thus:

Abortion rights supporters plan to march through downtown Atlanta on Sunday to show that Georgians support reproductive rights, even though the state Legislature sided with their anti-abortion opponents this year.

More than 45 groups will participate in the first “Walk for Women’s Lives,” which begins at 12:30 p.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church and ends with a rally at the Georgia State Capitol. The one-mile walk is intended to be a smaller version of last year’s abortion rights gathering in Washington, which drew more than a million participants by some estimates.

“It’s an opportunity for Georgians to come out and express their views, and express that they are pro-choice,” said Errin Vuley, executive director of Georgians for Choice, an umbrella organization representing 45 reproductive rights groups. “It’s a chance to specifically let the Georgia Legislature know that we’re not going to just sit back and let them take our rights away.”

The Legislature just passed the Woman’s Right to Know Act, a measure that requires doctors to inform women seeking an abortion about medical risks, probable gestational age of the fetus, fetal pain and alternatives to abortion, including adoption. After receiving the information, women will have to wait at least 24 hours to get an abortion.

The legislation also requires notification of a parent or legal guardian of a minor seeking an abortion. The governor is expected to sign the bill into law in the next few weeks.

Anti-abortion advocates hailed the Legislature’s actions and say they plan to push for other laws in 2006.

“With regard to the ‘Walk for Women’s Lives’ march, when a woman is pregnant, there are two lives,” said Pat Chivers, director of government relations for Georgia Right to Life. “There’s the woman’s life, and the baby’s life. Let’s love them both. We believe in loving the woman and loving the baby.”

Organizers of the march say they hope the Legislature’s actions will spur people who support reproductive rights into action. Becky Rafter, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Georgia, said numerous Georgians wrote, e-mailed and called their state lawmakers to oppose anti-abortion and other restrictive measures.

Rafter credits the actions of ordinary citizens in helping to remove a clause in the Woman’s Right to Know Act that would have required health care providers to tell women about a disputed link between abortion and breast cancer.

Leola Reis, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Georgia, said she would like to see the Legislature focus on efforts to prevent abortion, not laws to make the procedure harder to get.

“We’ve seen a lot of energy put into barriers to abortion,” Reis said. “If you want to prevent abortion, it’s through health care, comprehensive sex education, not abstinence education, and support for parents so they can talk to their children about their values.”

I’ll be there! I’m excited… this is my first experience with civic activism in such an up-close-and-personal way. (And with any luck, maybe the hot single progressive straight guy will be there!)