Tales from the Road #10: Changing of the Seasons and Gateway Sexual Activity

One of the topics I raised was the idea of abortion stigma, which is the notion that abortion is wrong. This attitude pervades how we talk about abortion, from movies, to politicians, to even how our own supporters talk about abortion. Sometimes one might hear a Planned Parenthood supporter defend our health services by saying, “Only  3% of Planned Parenthood services are abortions. Most of the services are family planning or STI testing and treatment.” While I understand why our supporters might reiterate this fact, it subtly stigmatizes abortion. The truth is, even if 100% of our services were abortion, there would be nothing wrong with that. I believe that we must be unapologetically pro-choice, because any decision regarding a person’s pregnancy, whether it is adoption, abortion or carrying to term, must be left up to that pregnant person.

The folks I spoke with in Maury County were concerned that even the Republican leadership in their area recognized that we were going to see a spike in thousands of forced births in the next year. I told them that one of the most important things we can do, which is something we’ve known for a long time, is to promote age-appropriate, medically accurate sexuality education and ensure access to birth control. We know that comprehensive sex education reduces the number of unintended pregnancies, delays the onset of sexual activity in teens, and increases educational, economic, and health outcomes. This is a challenge to provide in Tennessee because the anti-choice supermajority in the General Assembly has an extremely narrow religious perspective on sexuality and passed a “gateway sexual activity” law. Our opponents believe that providing information about sexual health will promote sexual activity, rather than understanding that it allows individuals to make informed health decisions. Because “gateway” is ambiguous and carries a $500 fine for teachers, it has put a chilling effect on providing medically accurate information to students in Tennessee.

Often, the most urgent action step at each of the talks I would give while on the road was asking for driving support for the next day. Button and I would need someone to either drop us off at the start and/or pick us up at the end of each day to take us back to our campervan. Thanks to Heidi and Amy for stepping up and to Marvin and June Caine for hosting us.

We made it from Hampshire to Columbia with Jean Mildenberger. Jean put us up the next night and walked with us from Columbia to Spring Hill, where she fed us a scrumptious meal of eggplant lasagna from her garden