Elizabeth Creely and Native American Activist Madonna Thunder Hawk Discuss Abortion Rights

Madonna Thunder Hawk is in town on a speaking tour, she will speak at New College of San Francisco Tuesday, May 30,2006, at 6:30PM. Below is the second half of a 40 minute conversation between Thunder Hawk and Elizabeth Creeley.

Thunder Hawk is a veteran of many modern Native American political struggles, including from Alcatraz to the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee. Her experience as a community organizer includes American Indian rights protection, cultural preservation, economic development, environmental justice, and Lakota social reclamation. She assisted in forming the Black Hills Protection Committee (now HeSapa Institute). Thunder Hawk’s work is of particular interest outside her native South Dakota because of her efforts to secure women’s reproductive rights. BACORR (Bay Area Coalition For Our Reproductive Right) is organizing with the more militant wing of the abortion rights struggle, focusing on direct action while working towards a full women’s reproductive justice platform.

Recently, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds signed into law a sweeping statewide ban on abortion. The ban outlines abortion in almost all cases, including when a woman’s health is in danger and even in cases of rape and incest. Anti-abortion activists nationwide are said to be encouraging a legal challenge to this law, hoping that if upheld it will set a precedent to overturn Federal Roe vs. Wade legally, banning abortions nationwide. For years states have been breaking down a woman’s right to abortion by limiting access to abortion, now only available in about 13% of Counties Nationwide and only about 30% of Counties here in more liberal California.

Stakes have been raised, with South Dakota and other more conservative states presenting bills to outright ban abortion, increasing the number of states which not only do not provide abortion but make it a criminal act. Right-wing terrorist groups have been harassing doctors and clinics including with violence. A well-organized religious lobby, which continues to bus and fly in members for anti-abortion activists in San Francisco, is working on a stated goal to change the Democratic Party’s position on abortion. Parental notification laws, like the one defeated last year in the California special election, discriminate against teenagers, often the most vulnerable. Forcing a woman to travel long distances to obtain an abortion intensifies class bias against low-income women. It also negatively impacts quality control, as it is difficult for a woman to effectively research the quality of the few clinics she may have long distance access to.

NARAL Pro-Choice America is currently heading the South Dakota Campaign For Healthy Families, an organizing effort to get a measure on this November’s ballot to repeal the ban. They report that 10,000 of the required 17,000 signatures have been collected and are seeking donations to finance the effort. If the required signatures are collected, the July 1 ban will be postponed pending the results of the election, allowing the vote to decide. State Senators Lee Schoenbeck and Roger Hunt have been trying to undermine the petition drive by pressuring Secretary of State Chris Nelson to shorten the time allowed to file signatures from the stated June 19 to May 30. Thunder Hawk’s work is of special importance under current conditions, because the South Dakota ban probably does not extend to Native American territory.

In the audio discussion below, Thunder Hawk discusses Native American cultural differences, explaining that in her culture abortion is seen as a necessary health care choice, without the extreme ideological, religious, and moral mentalities which exists in most of the U.S. She puts the blame squarely on Christianity for the regressive approach to abortion and women’s reproductive and other women’s health issues. Creeley speaks about her reasoning in having an abortion, and has been outspoken about the misguided mentality of guilt and fear pushed on women around abortion issues, encouraging women who have had abortions to speak out publicly about their experiences. They discuss the hypocrisy of “Pro-Life” activists, given the violence many perpetuate and the fact that many more women die for a variety of reasons when abortion is not available. She also discusses her decision to eschew institutional funding and 501c3 status in order to remain effective at a grassroots level. (20 minutes)