Pregnancy Options Dialgoue
Backline is proud to be a sponsor and facilitator of the annual Pregnancy Options Dialogue, to be held in Portland on Friday, February 10, 2012. Register today!
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Backline In the News
"Do You Have Any Children?" A Difficult Question to Answer
December 2009 | Huffington Post | by Melissa Busch
It's such a typical question to ask someone, and for many it's an easy yes or no answer... On occasion, I brave the consequences and answer the truth: "Yes, I'm a birthmother." This, of course, has to be followed by an explanation that I once was pregnant and chose to place my child in an open adoption, that I have a close relationship with my now 12-year-old daughter and her adoptive family; essentially, I am mother, I have a child, but I am not parenting.
Abortion: The Serious Health Decision Women Aren't Talking About Until Now
February 2009 | Glamour Magazine | by Liz Welch
It's 10 A.M. on a sunny day in Seattle and 25-year-old Anna* is sitting on the end of a gynecological exam table, naked except for her baggy gray T-shirt and the blue paper blanket draped over her lap. Her body is trembling but not from cold - she's pregnant and she's scared.
Mother's Helper
October 2008 | Portland Monthly | By Bart Blasengame
Award-winning doula Christy Hall talks about jailhouse births, modern feminism, and the postpartum watercooler.
The Personal is Political: Abortion Stigma and Reproductive Justice (PDF)
Reproductive Justice Briefing Book: A Primer on Reproductive Justice and Social Change | Chapter by Grayson Dempsey
From 1973 to 2002, more than 42 million legal abortions occurred in the United States, and countless other women considered abortion as an option even if they ultimately decided to continue their pregnancies. This staggering number of Americans who have personally been affected by abortion should mean that the legality and accessibility of services should be solidly protected. And yet just 49% of Americans identify as "pro-choice" and an even smaller number - 41% - believe abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances.
Celebrating Courageous Acts of Motherhood
May 9, 2008 | RH Reality Check | By Grayson Dempsey
This year, I will celebrate my first Mother's Day with a daughter of my own, a fact that I am contemplating deeply after an especially exhausting week of juggling work and family, responding to the needs of a teething baby, and sleeping less than I did during even the wildest of my party days.
Birth Options Essential to Reproductive Justice
January 31, 2008 | RH Reality Check | By Erin Wilkins
Working part-time as a pregnancy options counselor at a busy abortion clinic and also as an apprentice midwife in an out-of-hospital birth practice, I see firsthand the obvious parallels between birth and abortion every day. Given that clear connection, I am continually disappointed by the lack of attention the mainstream reproductive rights agenda has shown to birth options.
Q & A: Grayson Dempsey
May 16, 2007 | Willamette Week | By Beth Slovic
Grayson Dempsey wears her sunglasses like Gloria Steinem (big) and her heart like Drew Barrymore (on her sleeve). In Steinem's political spirit and Barrymore's demeanor, Dempsey bears more than a passing resemblance to both women. At 27, Dempsey is the president of Backline, a national, Portland-based confidential hotline. It offers apolitical counsel to women and their loved ones who have questions (both moral and practical) about pregnancy, abortion, adoption and parenting.
An Appreciative Approach to the Abortion Debate
May 16, 2007 | RH Reality Check | By Andrea Lynch
In our hypercritical cultures, we tend to take exclusively problem-based approaches to change, focusing on what's wrong and how we can change it instead of what's right and how we can expand it. Celebrating the good is what appreciative inquiry is all about. So, despite the Supreme Court's infuriatingly paternalistic Gonzales vs. Carhart decision, the anti-abortion nonsense continually unfolding at the state level, and the fact that the federal government continues to glibly fund ethically questionable crisis pregnancy centers, I want to take a moment to appreciate all of the folks out there who continue to place real women's lives, rights, needs, and capacities at the center of their work.
The Exorcists: Born-again abortion clinics
March/April 2007 | Mother Jones | By Josh Harkinson
When Troy Newman would answer the phone at Central Women's Services in Wichita, Kansas, last summer, there was a lot he didn't mention. The priests who'd been arrested for blocking the abortion clinic's door. The "truth truck" parked nearby with its billboard of an aborted fetus. The pickets at employees' homes. He didn't talk about how all of this had caused the clinic to shut down, save for its still- functioning phone system. He would press the receiver to his ear and intone, "Women's clinic!" And when a nervous voice at the other end of the line would inquire about abortion services, he would furrow his brow and ask, "Don't you know that's a baby?"
Timely and compelling vision: Being pro-choice means supporting all the choices
02/09/2007 | The Charleston Gazette | By Julie Pratt
I've never been more hopeful or proud about being pro-choice than I was at a recent gathering at the Woman's Club in Charleston. The occasion was the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that most abortion laws violated a woman's constitutional right to privacy. Read More...
Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?
01/21/2007 | The New York Times Magazine | By Emily Bazelon
A growing number of anti-abortion activists, despite social-science research, claim that women are traumatized by their abortions - and are trying to use this to reframe the abortion debate. Read More...
The New Scarlet Letter
01/02/2007 | Political Cortex | By Marcy Bloom
When I was in high school, I read "The Scarlet Letter" and was intrigued by its dark and stormy themes. Published in 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne narrates the story of Hester Prynne, the heroine accused of adultery in Puritan New England who is forced to wear the scarlet letter "A" as a symbol of her sin. Filled with alienation, secrecy, judgment, religious hypocrisy, and self-insight, it captured my interest. Read More...
Abortion Stigma Enters Era of Unburdening
12/07/2006 | Women's enews | By Eleanor J. Bader
Abortion is the most common surgical procedure in the United States, but the stigma surrounding it remains powerful, even for pro-choice advocates and abortion providers. Efforts to reduce the psychological toll are on an upswing. Read More...
